Tractor Pull Quotes

I like places like this," he announced. I like old places too," Josh said, "but what's to like about a place like this?" The king spread his arms wide. "What do you see?" Josh made a face. "Junk. Rusted tractor, broken plow, old bike." Ahh...but I see a tractor that was once used to till these fields. I see the plow it once pulled. I see a bicycle carefully placed out of harm's way under a table." Josh slowly turned again, looking at the items once more. And i see these things and I wonder at the life of the person who carefully stored the precious tractor and plow in the barn out of the weather, and placed their bike under a homemade table." Why do you wonder?" Josh asked. "Why is it even important?" Because someone has to remember," Gilgamesh snapped, suddenly irritated. "Some one has to remember the human who rode the bike and drove the tractor, the person who tilled the fields, who was born and lived and died, who loved and laughed and cried, the person who shivered in the cold and sweated in the sun." He walked around the barn again, touching each item, until his palm were red with rust." It is only when no one remembers, that you are truely lost. That is the true death.

He is about as well-put-together and focused as a zombie at a tractor pull.

The Western States nervous under the beginning change. Texas and Oklahoma, Kansas and Arkansas, New Mexico, Arizona, California. A single family moved from the land. Pa borrowed money from the bank, and now the bank wants the land. The land company--that's the bank when it has land --wants tractors, not families on the land. Is a tractor bad? Is the power that turns the long furrows wrong? If this tractor were ours it would be good--not mine, but ours. If our tractor turned the long furrows of our land, it would be good. Not my land, but ours. We could love that tractor then as we have loved this land when it was ours. But the tractor does two things--it turns the land and turns us off the land. There is little difference between this tractor and a tank. The people are driven, intimidated, hurt by both. We must think about this. One man, one family driven from the land; this rusty car creaking along the highway to the west. I lost my land, a single tractor took my land. I am alone and bewildered. And in the night one family camps in a ditch and another family pulls in and the tents come out. The two men squat on their hams and the women and children listen. Here is the node, you who hate change and fear revolution. Keep these two squatting men apart; make them hate, fear, suspect each other. Here is the anlarge of the thing you fear. This is the zygote. For here "I lost my land" is changed; a cell is split and from its splitting grows the thing you hate--"We lost our land." The danger is here, for two men are not as lonely and perplexed as one. And from this first "we" there grows a still more dangerous thing: "I have a little food" plus "I have none." If from this problem the sum is "We have a little food," the thing is on its way, the movement has direction. Only a little multiplication now, and this land, this tractor are ours. The two men squatting in a ditch, the little fire, the side- meat stewing in a single pot, the silent, stone-eyed women; behind, the children listening with their souls to words their minds do not understand. The night draws down. The baby has a cold. Here, take this blanket. It's wool. It was my mother's blanket--take it for the baby. This is the thing to bomb. This is the beginning--from "I" to "we." If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could know Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin, were results, not causes, you might survive. But that you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into "I," and cuts you off forever from the "we." The Western States are nervous under the begining change. Need is the stimulus to concept, concept to action. A half-million people moving over the country; a million more restive, ready to move; ten million more feeling the first nervousness. And tractors turning the multiple furrows in the vacant land.

When I saw the car pulling into the driveway and I saw her getting out and walking towards the house, can you imagine Nadezhda, I performed involuntary excretion in my trousers.

She took to reading with a fervor so extreme, Baba Joseph had to take the books from her hands by force. 'Your eyes are not tractors. They are not meant to pull heavy loads,' he said sternly.

There’s nothing to be scared of.” Instead of taking Charlie’s pulse – there was really no point – he took one of the old man’s hands in his. He saw Charlie’s wife pulling down a shade in the bedroom, wearing nothing but the slip of Belgian lace he’d bought her for their first anniversary; saw how the ponytail swung over one shoulder when she turned to look at him, her face lit in a smile that was all yes. He saw a Farmall tractor with a striped umbrella raised over the seat. He smelled bacon and heard Frank Sinatra singing ‘Come Fly with Me’ from a cracked Motorola radio sitting on a worktable littered with tools. He saw a hubcap full of rain reflecting a red barn. He tasted blueberries and gutted a deer and fished in some distant lake whose surface was dappled by steady autumn rain. He was sixty, dancing with his wife in the American Legion hall. He was thirty, splitting wood. He was five, wearing shorts and pulling a red wagon. Then the pictures blurred together, the way cards do when they’re shuffled in the hands of an expert, and the wind was blowing big snow down from the mountains, and in here was the silence and Azzie’s solemn watching eyes.

We should hope for even less participation, not more. Ideally, politics would occupy only a small portion of the average person’s attention. Ideally, most people would fill their days with painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain, or perhaps football, NASCAR, tractor pulls, celebrity gossip, and trips to Applebee’s. Most people, ideally, would not worry about politics at all.3

... they only trusted the wisdom of people brighter and more worldly than themselves when it was expressed in the vocabulary and style of rural idiots. In his guise as Brazenydol, he had once had a contract with DARPA to teach a team of physicists the basic terminology of tractor pulls so that they could give an acceptable explanation of omniwavelength stealth to a Congressional committee that didn’t understand tractor pulls, either.

Get in or you’ll miss the fun.” Fun? I slid into the seat. The engine purred to life. She floored the accelerator and the car jerked forward. She took a hard right and the tires screeched when she pulled out onto the main road. I gripped the armrest. “Who the f*ck gave you your license?” “Watch your language, Noah, and the state of Kentucky. Why did you miss your appointment?” I loved fast driving. Isaiah and I had drag raced all last summer. What I didn’t love was a middle-aged nut job who couldn’t steer straight. “You want to pull over and let me drive?” Mrs. Collins laughed and cut off a tractor trailer merging onto the freeway. “You’re a riot. Focus, Noah. The appointment.”

would have passed all sorts of poverties to you. But some late night a tractor would have pulled you, well fed by what we grew, under a clear sky full of stars. That laughter—that freedom—would have been the fortune you inherited.

It’s funny, but when I talk about this business of my father and Valentina with my women friends, they’re absolutely appalled. They see a vulnerable old man who’s being exploited. Yet all the men I talk to—without any exception, Mike” (I wag my finger) “they respond with these wry knowing smiles, these little admiring chuckles. Oh, what a lad he is. What an achievement, pulling this much younger bird. Best of luck to him. Let him have his bit of fun.” “You must admit, it’s done him good.” “I don’t admit anything.” (It’s much less satisfying arguing with Mike than with Vera or Pappa. He’s always so irritatingly reasonable.) “Are you sure you’re not just being a bit puritanical?” “Of course I’m not!” (So what if I am?) “It’s because he’s my father—I just want him to be grown up.” “He is being grown up, in his way.” “No he’s not, he’s being a lad. An eighty-four-year-old lad. You’re all being lads together. Wink wink. Nudge nudge. What a great pair of knockers. For goodness’ sake!” My voice has risen to a shriek. “But you can see it’s doing him good, this new relationship. It’s breathed new life into him. Just goes to show that you’re never too old for love.” “You mean for sex.” “Well, maybe that as well. Your Dad is just hoping to fulfil every man’s dream—to lie in the arms of a beautiful younger woman.” “Every man’s dream?” That night Mike and I sleep in separate beds.

I’ll see you in the morning. Oh, and hey…if I don’t answer the door right away it probably means I’m doing some weight training or something.” “Gotcha,” Marlboro Man answered, humoring me. “And hey--don’t pull any muscles or strain yourself. We’re getting married in less than a week.

I can’t wait till tomorrow,” he said, backing me against the door of my car, his lips moving toward my neck. Every nerve receptor in my body simultaneously fired as his strong hands gripped the small of my back; my hands pulled him closer and closer. We kissed and kissed some more in the hotel parking lot, flirting dangerously with taking it a step--or five--further. Out-of-control prairie fires were breaking out inside my body; even my knees felt hot. I couldn’t believe this man, this Adonis who held me so completely and passionately in his arms, was actually mine. That in a mere twenty-four hours, I’d have him all to myself.

Before I knew it, Marlboro Man’s right arm was wrapped around my waist while his other hand held the reins of the two horses. In another instant, he pulled me toward him in a tight grip and leaned in for a sweet, tender kiss--a kiss he seemed to savor even after our lips parted. “Good morning,” he said sweetly, grinning that magical grin.

It needs some very great disaster, such as prolonged subjugation by a foreign enemy, to destroy a national culture. The Stock Exchange will be pulled down, the horse plough will give way to the tractor, the country houses will be forgotten, but England will still be England, an everlasting animal stretching into the future and the past and like all living things, having the power to change out of recognition and yet remain the same.

Once out of the church doors, Marlboro Man swatted me. “Ow!” I shrieked, feeling stung. “What was that for?” “Just your Tuesday spanking,” Marlboro Man answered. I smiled. I’d always loved Tuesdays. We hopped in the pickup, and Marlboro Man started the engine. “Hey,” he said, turning to me. “Got any magazines I can borrow?” I giggled as Marlboro Man pulled away from the church. “I could use some glue, too,” he added. “I don’t think I have any at my house.

I looked at him, giggled like a schoolgirl, and asked, “What have you been doing all this time?” “Oh, I was headed home,” he said, fiddling with my fingers. “But then I just turned around; I couldn’t help it.” His hand found my upper back and pulled me closer. The windows were getting foggy. I felt like I was seventeen. “I’ve got this problem,” he continued, in between kisses. “Yeah?” I asked, playing dumb. My hand rested on his left bicep. My attraction soared to the heavens. He caressed the back of my head, messing up my hair…but I didn’t care; I had other things on my mind. “I’m crazy about you,” he said. By now I was on his lap, right in the front seat of his Diesel Ford F250, making out with him as if I’d just discovered the concept. I had no idea how I’d gotten there--the diesel pickup or his lap. But I was there. And, burying my face in his neck, I quietly repeated his sentiments. “I’m crazy about you, too.

I headed to the church at five-thirty, wearing jeans, flip-flops, and brick red lipstick. My mom, calm and cool as a mountain lake, carried my white dress--plain and romantic, with a bodice that laced up corset-style in the back and delicate sheer sleeves. I carted in my shoes…my earrings…my makeup…and my exfoliating scrub, in case my face decided to pull a last-minute sloughing. I wasn’t about to roll over and take a last-minute sloughing without a fight. Not on my wedding day.

Mike’s booming voice was downstairs. He was on the phone, as usual. “M-m-m-my sister is gettin’ married,” I heard him announce to the person on the other end of the line. “And I am gonna s-s-s-sing at duh reception.” A long pause followed. I braced myself. “Oh, p-p-p-prolly ‘Elvira,’” Mike said. Perfect, I thought, pulling myself out of bed. Mike singing “Elvira” at my reception. As if my scaly chin wasn’t enough, I needed one more thought to terrorize me for the rest of my wedding way.

Um… no reason in particular except that it’s cow country and less populated.” Both men grinned. “To be honest, Mr. Moore, thirty miles north is like being in a different country. All that’s around the area are fields where farmers on tractors are plowing something with shit-smelling fertilizer. We found a flat, straight road where we could see for miles in each direction. There wasn’t any traffic, so we pulled over, yanked out the bodies, and dumped them in a deep ditch. We unrolled them from the shrink wrap and left them there.

Telling a depressed person things like “Pull yourself out of it” is cruel and may reinforce the feelings of worthlessness, guilt, and failure already present as symptoms of the illness. Telling a manic person, “Slow down and get hold of yourself” is simply wishful thinking; that person is like a tractor trailer careening down a mountain highway with no brakes. So the first challenge facing family and friends is to change the way they look at behaviors that might be symptoms of the illness—behaviors like not wanting to get out of bed, being irritable and short-tempered, being “hyper” and reckless or overly critical and pessimistic. Our first reaction to these sorts of behaviors and attitudes is to regard them as laziness, meanness, or immaturity and to be critical of them. In a person with bipolar disorder, criticism almost always makes things worse: it reinforces the depressed patient’s feelings of worthlessness and failure, and it alienates and angers the hypomanic or manic patient. This is a hard lesson to learn. Don’t always take behaviors and statements at face value. Learn to ask yourself, “Could this be a symptom?” before you react.

Nothing in my life could have prepared me for the horror of watching Marlboro Man, my new love, and his brother, Tim, whom I’d just met, chivalrously dart around Tim’s driveway, trying valiantly to save my wayward dollars, all because I couldn’t keep my balance on the steps of their shiny new semi. I left my car at Tim’s for the evening, and when we pulled away in Marlboro Man’s pickup, I stared out the window, shaking my head and apologizing for being such a colossal dork. When we got to the highway, Marlboro Man glanced at me as he made a right-hand turn. “Yeah,” he said, consoling me. “But you’re my dork.

Minutes later, the door flung wide and Ben drew in a ragged breath with a decent attempt to control his lungs. “All done? You cough for the nice lady?” “Yeah, it was everything I hoped for and more. Where have you been?” Ben hacked and then cleared his throat. “Art building.” Art…? Ben really wasn’t the artsy type. “Why?” “Isn’t it obvious?” Cam leaned toward me and whisper-hissed, “It’s the gayness.” Ben scowled at his brother. “Yes, all gays have an affinity for art. We lose control of our bodies and are pulled toward it like a tractor beam.” Eyes of warm whiskey glittered up at me as Cam kicked his legs out, landing on the carpet. “Told ya.

When we pulled up to Marlboro Man’s house, I saw my Camry sitting in his driveway. I didn’t expect it to be there; I figured it was still on Marlboro Man’s parents’ road, sitting all crooked in the ditch where I’d left it the night before. Marlboro Man had already fixed it, fishing it out of the ditch and repairing the mangled tires and probably, knowing him, filling the tank with gas. “Oh, thank you so much,” I said as we walked toward the front door. “I thought maybe I’d killed it.” “Aw, it’s fine,” he replied. “But you might want to learn to drive before you get in it again.” He flashed his mischievous grin. I slugged him in the arm as he laughed.

The sun was just dipping below the western horizon when we pulled up to our little house on the prairie. Despite the obvious turmoil I knew was swarming in the periphery, I couldn’t help but instantly smile when I saw our little home. Home, I thought to myself--a strange response, considering I’d never spent a night there. But, being back there, I felt the heartbeat of our love affair that had started on that very ranch, the drives we’d taken, the dinners we’d cooked, the nights we’d spent watching submarine movies on his old leather couch, which Marlboro Man had already moved to our new little house so we’d be able to enjoy it immediately. Poor couch. It must have been awfully lonely without us.

Normally, burning is carried out from a Jeep or other open vehicle, the driver holding a torch out of the side, lighting grass as he goes. I’d seen Marlboro Man do it from afar but had never been up close and personal with the flames. Maybe he needs me to drive the Jeep! I thought. Or, better yet, man the torch! This could be really fun. He asked me to meet him at the barn near his house, where his Jeep was parked. Just as I pulled up, I saw Marlboro Man exiting the barn…who two horses in hand. My stomach felt funny as I scrunched up my nose and mouthed the word crap. I wasn’t comfortable riding a horse, and like my parents’ marital problems, I’d been secretly hoping this whole “horse thing” would just up and magically disappear.

Six horses died in a tractor-trailer fire. There. That's the hard part. I wanted to tell you straight away so we could grieve together. So many sad things, that's just one on a long recent list that loops and elongates in the chest, in the diaphragm, in the alveoli. What is it they say, heartsick or downhearted? I picture a heart lying down on the floor of the torso, pulling up the blankets over its head, thinking the pain will go on forever (even though it won't). The heart is watching Lifetime movies and wishing, and missing all the good parts of her that she has forgotten. The heart is so tired of beating herself up, she wants to stop it still, but also she wants the blood to return, wants to bring in the thrill and wind of the ride, the fast pull of life driving underneath her. What the heart wants? The heart wants her horses back.

A preacher visiting his flock in the country happens to see a pig walking around on three legs. The preacher stops the farmer and says, “My son, what’s happened to your poor pig?” “Well,” says the farmer, “this pig is very special to my family and me. Just two months ago, I was working underneath my tractor when the jack fell and the tractor was crushing me. I yelled and my pig rushed to my rescue, dug me out, and pulled me away from the tractor.” “That’s very commendable,” says the preacher, “but—” “That’s not all, preacher. Last week, my house caught fire and my pig pulled my two young daughters to safety. The little fella even received a hero’s gold ribbon from the mayor.” “That’s marvelous,” says the preacher, “but that still doesn’t explain the missing leg.” “Like I said preacher, this pig is very special to my family and, well, we just can’t bring ourselves to eat it all at once.

With Marlboro Man’s strong hands massaging my tired shoulders, I walked in front of him down the narrow porch toward the driveway, where my dusty car awaited me. But before I could take the step down he stopped me, grabbing a belt loop on the back of my Anne Kleins, and pulling me back toward him with rapid--almost shocking--force. “Woooo!” I exclaimed, startled at the jolt. My cry was so shrill, the coyotes answered back. I felt awkward. Marlboro Man moved in for the kill, pulling my back tightly against his chest and wrapping his arms slowly around my waist. As I rested my arms on top of his hands and leaned my head back toward his shoulder, he buried his face in my neck. Suddenly, September seemed entirely too far away. I had to have this man to myself 24/7, as soon as humanly possible. “I can’t wait to marry you,” he whispered, each word sending a thousand shivers to my toes. I knew exactly what he meant. He wasn’t talking about the wedding cake.

The loud ring of my car phone disrupted my introspection. Startled, I picked up the phone, certain it would be J calling from the airport after, probably, persistently calling all night. Another phone confrontation. But at least this time I’d be ready. I’d just had a four-hour dose of Marlboro Man. I could handle anything. “Hello?” I said, readying myself. “Hey, you,” the voice said. The voice. That voice. The one that had infiltrated my dreams. It was Marlboro Man, calling to say he missed me, a mere five minutes after I’d pulled away from his house. And his words weren’t scripted or canned, like the obligatory roses sent after a date. They were impulsive, spur-of-the-moment--the words of a man who’d had a thought and acted on it within seconds. A man who, in his busy life on the ranch, had neither the time nor the inclination to wait to call a girl or play it cool. A man who liked a woman and called her just as she left his house, simply to tell her he wished she hadn’t.

This time he asks his audience to join him in a mental exercise. As Boyd states, Imagine that you are on a ski slope with other skiers [. . .]. Imagine that you are in Florida riding in an outboard motorboat, maybe even towing water-skiers. Imagine that you are riding a bicycle on a nice spring day. Imagine that you are a parent taking your son to a department store and that you notice he is fascinated by the toy tractors or tanks with rubber caterpillar treads’.38 Now imagine that you pull the ski’s off but you are still on the ski slope. Imagine also that you remove the outboard motor from the motor boat, and you are not longer in Florida. And from the bicycle you remove the handle- bar and discard the rest of the bike. Finally, you take off the rubber treads from the toy tractor or tanks. This leaves only the following separate pieces: skis, outboard motor, handlebars and rubber treads. However, he challenges his audience, what emerges when you pull all this together?39 SNOWMOBILE

He drove me home, through all the windy roads of his ranch and down the two-lane highway that eventually led to my parents’ house on the golf course. And when he walked me to the door, I marveled at how different it felt. Every time I’d stood with Marlboro Man on those same front porch steps, I’d felt the pull of my boxes beckoning me to come inside, to finish packing, to get ready to leave. Packing after our dates had become a regular activity, a ritual, an effort, on my part, to keep my plans moving along despite my ever-growing affection for this new and unexpected man in my life. And now, this night, standing here in his arms, the only thing left to do was unpack them. Or leave them there; I didn’t care. I wasn’t going anywhere. At least not for now. “I didn’t expect this,” he said, his arms around my waist. “I didn’t expect it either,” I said, laughing. He moved in for one final kiss, the perfect ending for such a night. “You made my day,” he whispered, before walking to his pickup and driving away.

Having crossed the international date line, it was Tuesday morning when Marlboro Man and I finally checked into the Park Hyatt, nestled right on the Sydney Harbor. Starving, we feasted on a big plate of scrambled eggs from the lobby buffet before heading up to our room, which overlooked the harbor and had remote control-operated drapes and a marble bathtub just big enough for two newlyweds hell-bent on discovering every single thing about each other’s bodies that they could, as soon as humanly possible. We didn’t come up for air till Wednesday afternoon. “Let’s just stay here for the whole three weeks,” Marlboro Man said, tracing his finger along my scapula as we lay dreamily in our honeymoon bed. “I’m game,” I said, gazing at his whiskered face. Sydney was my new favorite place on earth. Marlboro Man pulled me closer, our heads nestling in each other’s necks…our legs wrapping as tightly around each other as was orthopedically possible. We were as one flesh as two people could be. There were no two ways about it.

I pulled up at home and saw Marlboro Man’s truck next to the house. When I walked in the door of our little white house, he was there, sitting on the bench, taking off his boots. “Hey,” he said, leaning back against the wall. “How’re you doing?” “Better,” I replied. “I had a Frosty.” He pulled off his left boot. “What’d you find out?” “Well,” I started. My lip began to quiver. Marlboro Man stood up. “What’s wrong?” he said. “I’m p…” My lip quivered even more, making it difficult to speak. “I’m pregnant!” I cried. The tears started rolling. “What?” he exclaimed, moving toward me. “Really?” All I could do was nod. The lump in my throat was too big for me to talk. “Oh, wow.” He moved in, hugging me close. I guess he hadn’t expected it either. I just stood there and cried silently. For our past…for our future. For my nausea and my fatigue. For receiving a diagnosis. As for Marlboro Man, he just stood there and held me as he always had when I’d broken into unanticipated crying attacks, all the while trying his best not to explode with excitement over the fact that his baby was growing in my belly.

per hour. Handbrake knew that he could keep up with the best of them. Ambassadors might look old-fashioned and slow, but the latest models had Japanese engines. But he soon learned to keep it under seventy. Time and again, as his competitors raced up behind him and made their impatience known by the use of their horns and flashing high beams, he grudgingly gave way, pulling into the slow lane among the trucks, tractors and bullock carts. Soon, the lush mustard and sugarcane fields of Haryana gave way to the scrub and desert of Rajasthan. Four hours later, they reached the rocky hills surrounding the Pink City, passing in the shadow of the Amber Fort with its soaring ramparts and towering gatehouse. The road led past the Jal Mahal palace, beached on a sandy lake bed, into Jaipur’s ancient quarter. It was almost noon and the bazaars along the city’s crenellated walls were stirring into life. Beneath faded, dusty awnings, cobblers crouched, sewing sequins and gold thread onto leather slippers with curled-up toes. Spice merchants sat surrounded by heaps of lal mirch, haldi and ground jeera, their colours as clean and sharp as new watercolor paints. Sweets sellers lit the gas under blackened woks of oil and prepared sticky jalebis. Lassi vendors chipped away at great blocks of ice delivered by camel cart. In front of a few of the shops, small boys, who by law should have been at school, swept the pavements, sprinkling them with water to keep down the dust. One dragged a doormat into the road where the wheels of passing vehicles ran over it, doing the job of carpet beaters. Handbrake honked his way through the light traffic as they neared the Ajmeri Gate, watching the faces that passed by his window: skinny bicycle rickshaw drivers, straining against the weight of fat aunties; wild-eyed Rajasthani men with long handlebar moustaches and sun-baked faces almost as bright as their turbans; sinewy peasant women wearing gold nose rings and red glass bangles on their arms; a couple of pink-faced goras straining under their backpacks; a naked sadhu, his body half covered in ash like a caveman. Handbrake turned into the old British Civil Lines, where the roads were wide and straight and the houses and gardens were set well apart. Ajay Kasliwal’s residence was number

Hey,” I began, looking into his eyes. “I’m sorry I’ve been so…so pathetic since, like, the day we got married.” He smiled and took a swig of Dr Pepper. “You haven’t been pathetic,” he said. He was a terrible liar. “I haven’t?” I asked, incredulous, savoring the scrumptious red meat. “No,” he answered, taking another bite of steak and looking me squarely in the eye. “You haven’t.” I was feeling argumentative. “Have you forgotten about my inner ear disturbance, which caused me to vomit all across Australia?” He paused, then countered, “Have you forgotten about the car I rented us?” I laughed, then struck back. “Have you forgotten about the poisonous lobster I ordered us?” Then he pulled out all the stops. “Have you forgotten all the money we lost?” I refused to be thwarted. “Have you forgotten that I found out I was pregnant after we got back from our honeymoon and I called my parents to tell them and I didn’t get a chance because my mom left my dad and I went on to have a nervous breakdown and had morning sickness for six weeks and now my jeans don’t fit?” I was the clear winner here. “Have you forgotten that I got you pregnant?” he said, grinning. I smiled and took the last bite of my steak.

Before I knew it, the first animal had entered the chute. Various cowboys were at different positions around the animal and began carrying out their respective duties. Tim looked at me and yelled, “Stick it in!” With utter trepidation, I slid the wand deep into the steer’s rectum. This wasn’t natural. This wasn’t normal. At least it wasn’t for me. This was definitely against God’s plan. I was supposed to check the monitor and announce if the temperature was above ninety-degrees. The first one was fine. But before I had a chance to remove the probe, Tim set the hot branding iron against the steer’s left hip. The animal let out a guttural Mooooooooooooo!, and as he did, the contents of its large intestine emptied all over my hand and forearm. Tim said, “Okay, Ree, you can take it out now.” I did. I didn’t know what to do. My arm was covered in runny, stinky cow crap. Was this supposed to happen? Should I say anything? I glanced at my sister, who was looking at me, completely horrified. The second animal entered the chute. The routine began again. I stuck it in. Tim branded. The steer bellowed. The crap squirted out. I was amazed at how consistent and predictable the whole nasty process was, and how nonchalant everyone--excluding my sister--was acting. But then slowly…surely…I began to notice something. On about the twentieth animal, I began inserting the thermometer. Tim removed his branding iron from the fire and brought it toward the steer’s hip. At the last second, however, I fumbled with my device and had to stop for a moment. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that when I paused, Tim did, too. It appeared he was actually waiting until I had the thermometer fully inserted before he branded the animal, ensuring that I’d be right in the line of fire when everything came pouring out. He had planned this all along, the dirty dog. Seventy-eight steers later, we were finished. I was a sight. Layer upon layer of manure covered my arm. I’m sure I was pale and in shock. The cowboys grinned politely. Tim directed me to an outdoor faucet where I could clean my arm. Marlboro Man watched as he gathered up the tools and the gear…and he chuckled. As my sister and I pulled away in the car later that day, she could only say, “Oh. My. God.” She made me promise never to return to that awful place. I didn’t know it at the time, but I’d found out later that this, from Tim’s perspective, was my initiation. It was his sick, twisted way of measuring my worth.

What am I? Chopped liver? Is there some specific reason he never pulls me over close to him as we drive around the countryside? Why doesn’t he hook his right arm affectionately around my neck and claim me as the woman of his pickup? I never knew I had such a yearning to ride next to a man in a pickup, but apparently it had been a suppressed lifelong dream I knew nothing about. Suddenly, sitting in that pickup with Marlboro Man, I’d apparently never wanted anything so badly in my life. I couldn’t keep quiet about it any longer. “So…,” I began. Was it just a high school thing? Or worse, I imagined, is it just that I’m not and never will be a country girl? Is it that country girls have some wild sense of abandon that I wasn’t born with? A reckless side, a fun, adventurous side that makes them worthy of riding next to boys in pickups? Am I untouchable? Am I too prim? Too proper? I’m not! I’m really not! I’m fun and adventurous. Reckless, too! I have a pair of jeans: Anne Kleins! And I want to be Middle Seat Worthy. Please, Marlboro Man…please. I’ve never wanted anything this much. “So, um…why don’t you do it anymore?” I asked. “Bucket seats,” Marlboro Man answered, his hand still resting on my leg. Made sense. I settled in and relaxed a bit.

Hang tight,” he said. “I’ll be right there.” Marlboro Man was right there, in less than five minutes. Once I determined the white pickup pulling beside my car was his and not that of Jason Voorhees, I rolled down my window. Marlboro Man did the same and said, with a huge smile, “Having trouble?” He was enjoying this, in the exact same way he’d enjoyed waking me from a sound sleep when he’d called at seven a few days earlier. I was having no trouble establishing myself as the clueless pansy-ass of our rapidly developing relationship. “Follow me,” he said. I did. I’ll follow you anywhere, I thought as I drove in the dust trail behind his pickup. Within minutes we were back at the highway and I heaved a sigh of relief that I was going to survive. Humiliated and wanting to get out of his hair, I intended to give him a nice, simple wave and drive away in shame. Instead, I saw Marlboro Man walking toward my car. Staring at his Wranglers, I rolled down my window again so I could hear what he had to say. He didn’t say anything at all. He opened my car door, pulled me out of the car, and kissed me as I’d never been kissed before. And there we were. Making out wildly at the intersection of a county road and a rural highway, dust particles in the air mixing with the glow of my headlights to create a cattle ranch version of London fog.

Your belly’s getting big,” he said one night. “I know,” I answered, looking down. It was kind of hard to deny. “I love it,” he said, stroking it with the palm of his hand. I recoiled a little, remembering the black bikini I’d worn on our honeymoon and how comparatively concave my belly looked then, and hoping Marlboro Man had long since put the image out of his mind. “Hey, what are we naming this thing?” he asked, even as the “thing” fluttered and kicked in my womb. “Oh, man…” I sighed. “I have no idea. Zachary?” I pulled it out of my wazoo. “Eh,” he said, uninspired. “Shane?” Oh no. Here go the old movies. “I went to my senior prom with a Shane,” I answered, remembering dark and mysterious Shane Ballard. “Okay, scratch that,” he said. “How about…how about Ashley?” How far was he going to take this? I remembered a movie we’d watched on our fifteenth date or so. “How about Rooster Cogburn?” He chuckled. I loved it when he chuckled. It meant everything was okay and he wasn’t worried or stressed or preoccupied. It meant we were dating and sitting on his old porch and my parents weren’t divorcing. It meant my belly button wasn’t bulbous and deformed. His chuckles were like a drug to me. I tried to elicit them daily. “What if it’s a girl?” I said. “Oh, it’s a boy,” he said with confidence. “I’m positive.” I didn’t respond. How could I argue with that?

When we pulled up to Marlboro Man’s house, I saw my Camry sitting in his driveway. I didn’t expect it to be there; I figured it was still on Marlboro Man’s parents’ road, sitting all crooked in the ditch where I’d left it the night before. Marlboro Man had already fixed it, fishing it out of the ditch and repairing the mangled tires and probably, knowing him, filling the tank with gas. “Oh, thank you so much,” I said as we walked toward the front door. “I thought maybe I’d killed it.” “Aw, it’s fine,” he replied. “But you might want to learn to drive before you get in it again.” He flashed his mischievous grin. I slugged him in the arm as he laughed. Then he lunged at me, grabbing my arms and using his leg to sweep my supporting leg right out from under me. Within an instant, he had me on the ground, right on the soft, green grass of his front yard. I shrieked and screamed, trying in vain to wrestle my way out of his playful grasp, but my wimpy upper body was no match for his impossible strength. He tickled me, and being the most ticklish human in the Northern Hemisphere, I screamed bloody murder. Afraid I’d wet my pants (it was a valid concern), I fought back the only way I knew how--by grabbing and untucking his shirt from his Wranglers…and running my hand up his back, poking at his rib cage. The tickling suddenly stopped. Marlboro Man propped himself on his elbows, holding my face in his hands. He kissed me passionately and seriously, and what started as a playful wrestling match became an impromptu make-out session in his front yard. It was an unlikely place for such an event, and considering it was at the very beginning of our night together, an unlikely time. But it was also strangely perfect. Because sometime during all the laughing and tickling and wrestling and rolling around in the grass, my worry and concern over my parents’ troubles had magically melted away. Only when the chiggers began biting did Marlboro Man suggest an alternate plan. “Let’s go inside,” he said. “I’m cooking dinner.” Yummy, I thought. That means steak. And as we walked into the house, I smiled contentedly, realizing that the stress of the previous twenty-four hours had all but disappeared from view. And I knew it, even then: Marlboro Man, not only that night but in the months to come, would prove to be my savior, my distraction, my escape in the midst of troubles, my strength in the face of upheaval, my beauty in times of terrible, heartbreaking ugliness. He held my heart entirely in his hands, this cowboy, and for the first time in my life, despite everything I’d ever believed about independence and feminism and emotional autonomy, I knew I’d be utterly incomplete without him. Talk about a terrifying moment.

When I arrived, I immediately saw the mother of an ex-boyfriend, the kind of ex-boyfriend that would make you want to look as good as possible if you ran into his mother at a shower when you were several months pregnant. She saw me, smiled politely, and made her way across the room to visit with me. We hugged, exchanged pleasantries, and caught up on what we’d both been doing. As we talked, I fantasized about her reporting to her son, my ex, the next day. Oh, you should have seen Ree. She was positively glowing! You should have seen how wonderful she looked! Don’t you wish you had married her? Deep into our small talk, I made mention of how long it had been since she and I had seen each other. “Well…I did see you recently,” she replied. “But I don’t think you saw me.” I couldn’t imagine. “Oh really?” I asked. “Where?” I hardly ever came to my hometown. “Well,” she continued. “I saw you pulling out of McDonald’s on Highway Seventy-five one morning a few weeks ago. I waved to you…but you didn’t see me.” My insides suddenly shriveled, imagining myself violently shoving breakfast burritos into my mouth. “McDonald’s? Really?” I said, trying my best to play dumb. “Yes,” my ex’s mother replied, smiling. “You looked a little…hungry!” “Hmmm,” I said. “I don’t think that was me.” I skulked away to the bathroom, vowing to eat granola for the rest of my pregnancy.

Marlboro Man had to spend the rest of Thanksgiving weekend weaning the calves that had been born the previous spring, and since I was clearly feeling better, I no longer had a get-out-of-jail (or sleep-in-till-nine) card to use. He woke me up that Saturday morning by poking my ribs with his index finger. A groan was all I could manage. I pulled the covers over my head. “Time to make the doughnuts,” he said, peeling back the covers. I blinked my eyes. The room was still dark. The world was still dark. It wasn’t time for me to get up yet. “Doughnuts…huh?” I groaned, trying to lie as still as I could so Marlboro Man would forget I was there. “I don’t know how.” “It’s a figure of speech,” he said, lying down next to me. Make the doughnuts? What? Where was I? Who was I? I was disoriented. Confused. “C’mon,” he said. “Come wean calves with me.” I opened my eyes and looked at him. My strapping husband was fully clothed, wearing Wranglers and a lightly starched blue plaid shirt. He was rubbing my slightly chubby belly, something I’d gotten used to in the previous few weeks. He liked touching my belly. “I can’t,” I said, sounding wimpy. “I’m…I’m pregnant.” I was pulling out all the stops. “Yep, I know,” he said, his gentle rub turning back into a poke again. I writhed and wriggled and squealed, then finally relented, getting dressed and heading out the door with my strapping cowboy.

Marlboro Man’s call woke me up the next morning. It was almost eleven. “Hey,” he said. “What’s up?” I hopped out of bed, blinking and stumbling around my room. “Who me? Oh, nothing.” I felt like I’d been drugged. “Were you asleep?” he said. “Who, me?” I said again, trying to snap out of my stupor. I was stalling, trying my darnedest to get my bearings. “Yes. You,” he said, chuckling. “I can’t believe you were asleep!” “I wasn’t asleep! I was…I just…” I was a loser. A pathetic, late-sleeping loser. “You’re a real go-getter in the mornings, aren’t you?” I loved it when he played along with me. I rubbed my eyes and pinched my own cheek, trying to wake up. “Yep. Kinda,” I answered. Then, changing the subject: “So…what are you up to today?” “Oh, I had to run to the city early this morning,” he said. “Really?” I interrupted. The city was over two hours from his house. “You got an early start!” I would never understand these early mornings. When does anyone ever sleep out there? Marlboro Man continued, undaunted. “Oh, and by the way…I’m pulling into your driveway right now.” Huh? I ran to my bathroom mirror and looked at myself. I shuddered at the sight: puffy eyes, matted hair, pillow mark on my left cheek. Loose, faded pajamas. Bag lady material. Sleeping till eleven had not been good for my appearance. “No. No you’re not,” I begged. “Yep. I am,” he answered. “No you’re not,” I repeated. “Yes. I am,” he said. I slammed my bathroom door and hit the lock. Please, Lord, please, I prayed, grabbing my toothbrush. Please let him be joking. I brushed my teeth like a crazed lunatic as I examined myself in the mirror. Why couldn’t I look the women in commercials who wake up in a bed with ironed sheets and a dewy complexion with their hair perfectly tousled? I wasn’t fit for human eyes, let alone the piercing eyes of the sexy, magnetic Marlboro Man, who by now was walking up the stairs to my bedroom. I could hear the clomping of his boots. The boots were in my bedroom by now, and so was the gravelly voice attached to them. “Hey,” I heard him say. I patted an ice-cold washcloth on my face and said ten Hail Marys, incredulous that I would yet again find myself trapped in the prison of a bathroom with Marlboro Man, my cowboy love, on the other side of the door. What in the world was he doing there? Didn’t he have some cows to wrangle? Some fence to fix? It was broad daylight; didn’t he have a ranch to run? I needed to speak to him about his work ethic. “Oh, hello,” I responded through the door, ransacking the hamper in my bathroom for something, anything better than the sacrilege that adorned my body. Didn’t I have any respect for myself? I heard Marlboro Man laugh quietly. “What’re you doing in there?” I found my favorite pair of faded, soft jeans. “Hiding,” I replied, stepping into them and buttoning the waist. “Well, c’mere,” he said softly.

What is it?” I asked, pasting a magazine photo of a football--found in an old Seventeen magazine spread--on my beloved’s collage. “Well, a bunch of cattle trucks just showed up,” he said, trying to talk over the symphonic mooing of cows all around him. “They were supposed to get here tomorrow night, but they showed up early…” “Oh, no…that’s a bummer,” I said, not quite sure what he was getting at. “So now I’ve got to work all these cattle tonight and get ’em shipped…and by the time I get done, the store in town will be closed,” he began. Our appointment with Father Johnson was at ten the next morning. “So I think I’m just going to have to come over there really early tomorrow morning and do the thing at your house,” Marlboro Man said. I could hardly hear him through the cattle. “Are you sure?” I asked. “What time were you thinking of coming over?” I braced myself for the worst. “I was thinking around six or so,” he said. “That would give me plenty of time to get it done before we go.” Six? In the morning? Ugh, I thought. I have only one more week of sleeping in. After we’re married, there’s no telling what time I’ll have to get out of bed. “Okay,” I said, my voice dripping with trepidation. “I’ll see you in the morning. Oh, and hey…if I don’t answer the door right away it probably means I’m doing some weight training or something.” “Gotcha,” Marlboro Man answered, humoring me. “And hey--don’t pull any muscles or strain yourself. We’re getting married in less than a week.” My stomach fluttered as I hung up the phone and resumed work on my collage.

Soon it was time for us to leave; the clock had struck midnight, and we had miles to go before we slept. After throwing my bouquet and saying good-byes, Marlboro Man and I ran through the doors of the club and climbed into the back of a smoky black limousine--the vehicle that would take us to the big city miles away, where we’d stay before flying to Australia the next day. As we pulled away from the waving, birdseed-throwing crowd at the front door of the club, we immediately settled into each other’s arms, melting into a puddle of white silk and black boots and sleepy, unbridled romance. It was all so new. New dress…new love…a new country--Australia--that neither of us had ever seen. A new life together. A new life for me. New crystal, silver, china. A newly renovated, tiny cowboy house that would be our little house on the prairie when we returned from our honeymoon. A new husband. My husband. I wanted to repeat it over and over again, wanted to shout it to the heavens. But I couldn’t speak. I was busy. Passion had taken over--a beast had been unleashed. Sleep deprived and exhausted from the celebration of the previous week, once inside the sanctity of the limousine, we were utterly powerless to stop it…and we let it fly. It was this same passion that had gotten us through the early stages of our relationship, and, ultimately, through the choice to wave good-bye to any life I’d ever imagined for myself. To become a part of Marlboro Man’s life instead. It was this same passion that assured me that everything was exactly as it should be. It was the passion that made it all make sense.

Mr. Sulu,” Jim said, “I can’t avoid the impression that you’re counting all the asteroids in this neighborhood.” “Not counting them as such, Captain. We’re building a recognition database, tagging the asteroids with nominal IDs, and noting their masses for future reference. If you know an asteroid’s mass within a couple of significant figures, you can very quickly calculate what kind of forces would need to be applied to it to make it move. Once Khiy and I get them all tagged, or all the ones in this area, we can get the ship’s computer to alert us when an enemy vessel is getting close enough for one of the asteroids to be a threat. Then either Bloodwing or Enterprise gives the necessary rock a pull with a tractor or a push with a pressor …” Jim grinned. In slower-than-light combat, the lightspeedor-faster weapons came into their own, as long as you kept away from the higher, near-relativistic impulse speeds. “You’re concentrating on the asteroids nearer to the processing facility, I see.” “Yes, sir—a sphere about a hundred thousand kilometers in diameter, including almost the entire breadth of the belt in this area. Any ship outside that diameter isn’t going to be a threat to us at subwarp speeds. If they want to engage with us, they’ve got to drop their speed and come inside the sphere.” “‘Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly…’” Jim said. “Get on with it, Mr. Sulu. In a situation like this, every little bit helps. Are you going to be able to have this ready by the time the ‘flies’ arrive?” “We’ll do our best, Captain. There are some inconsistencies between the ways Bloodwing’s computer handles large amounts of data like this, and the way ours does. We’ve got to solve them on the fly.” And Sulu chuckled.

How come I wasn’t riding around in his middle seat? Was I supposed to initiate this? Was this expected of me? Because I probably should know early on. But wouldn’t he have gestured in that direction if he’d wanted me to move over and sit next to him? Maybe, just maybe, he’d liked those girls better than he liked me. Maybe they’d had a closeness that warranted their riding side by side in a pickup, a closeness that he and I just don’t share? Please don’t let that be the reason. I don’t like that reason. I had to ask him. I had to know. “Can I ask you something?” I said as we drove down the road separating a neighboring ranch from his. “Sure,” Marlboro Man answered. He reached over and touched my knee. “Did you ever used to drive around in your pickup with a girl sitting in the middle seat right next to you?” I tried not to sound accusatory. A grin formed in the corner of Marlboro Man’s mouth. “Sure I did,” he said. His hand was still on my knee. “Why?” “Oh, no reason. I was just curious,” I said. I wanted to leave it at that. “What made you think of that?” he said. “Oh, I was really just curious,” I repeated. “Growing up, I’d sometimes see boys and girls riding right next to each other in pickups, and I just wondered if you ever did. That’s all.” I stopped short of telling him I never understood the whole thing or asking him why he loved Julie more than me. “Yep. I did,” he said. I looked out the window and thought for a minute. What am I? Chopped liver? Is there some specific reason he never pulls me over close to him as we drive around the countryside? Why doesn’t he hook his right arm affectionately around my neck and claim me as the woman of his pickup? I never knew I had such a yearning to ride next to a man in a pickup, but apparently it had been a suppressed lifelong dream I knew nothing about. Suddenly, sitting in that pickup with Marlboro Man, I’d apparently never wanted anything so badly in my life.

I hopped in the car and headed toward the ranch. I almost fell asleep at the wheel. Twice. Marlboro Man met me at the road that led to his parents’ house, and I followed him down five miles of graveled darkness. When we pulled into the paved drive, I saw the figure of his mother through the kitchen window. She was sipping coffee. My stomach gurgled. I should have eaten something. A croissant, back at my parents’ house. A bowl of Grape-Nuts, maybe. Heck, a Twinkie at QuikTrip would have been nice. My stomach was in knots. When I exited the car, Marlboro Man was there. Shielded by the dark of the morning, we were free to greet each other not only with a close, romantic hug but also a soft, sweet kiss. I was glad I’d remembered to brush my teeth. “You made it,” he said, smiling and rubbing my lower back. “Yep,” I replied, concealing a yawn. “And I got a five-mile run in before I came. I feel awesome.” “Uh-huh,” he said, taking my hand and heading toward the house. “I sure wish I were a morning person like you.” When we walked into the house, his parents were standing in the foyer. “Hey!” his dad said with a gravelly voice the likes of which I’d never heard before. Marlboro Man came by it honestly. “Hello,” his mom said warmly. They were there to welcome me. Their house smelled deliciously like leather. “Hi,” I said. “I’m Ree.” I reached out and shook their hands. “You sure look nice this morning,” his mom remarked. She looked comfortable, as if she’d rolled out of bed and thrown on the first thing she’d found. She looked natural, like she hadn’t set her alarm for 3:40 A.M. so she could be sure to get on all nine layers of mascara. She was wearing tennis shoes. She looked at ease. She looked beautiful. My palms felt clammy. “She always looks nice,” Marlboro Man said to his mom, touching my back lightly. I wished I hadn’t curled my hair. That was a little over-the-top. That, and the charcoal eyeliner. And the raspberry shimmer lip gloss.

When we pulled up to Marlboro Man’s house, I saw my Camry sitting in his driveway. I didn’t expect it to be there; I figured it was still on Marlboro Man’s parents’ road, sitting all crooked in the ditch where I’d left it the night before. Marlboro Man had already fixed it, fishing it out of the ditch and repairing the mangled tires and probably, knowing him, filling the tank with gas. “Oh, thank you so much,” I said as we walked toward the front door. “I thought maybe I’d killed it.” “Aw, it’s fine,” he replied. “But you might want to learn to drive before you get in it again.” He flashed his mischievous grin. I slugged him in the arm as he laughed. Then he lunged at me, grabbing my arms and using his leg to sweep my supporting leg right out from under me. Within an instant, he had me on the ground, right on the soft, green grass of his front yard. I shrieked and screamed, trying in vain to wrestle my way out of his playful grasp, but my wimpy upper body was no match for his impossible strength. He tickled me, and being the most ticklish human in the Northern Hemisphere, I screamed bloody murder. Afraid I’d wet my pants (it was a valid concern), I fought back the only way I knew how--by grabbing and untucking his shirt from his Wranglers…and running my hand up his back, poking at his rib cage. The tickling suddenly stopped. Marlboro Man propped himself on his elbows, holding my face in his hands. He kissed me passionately and seriously, and what started as a playful wrestling match became an impromptu make-out session in his front yard. It was an unlikely place for such an event, and considering it was at the very beginning of our night together, an unlikely time. But it was also strangely perfect. Because sometime during all the laughing and tickling and wrestling and rolling around in the grass, my worry and concern over my parents’ troubles had magically melted away. Only when the chiggers began biting did Marlboro Man suggest an alternate plan. “Let’s go inside,” he said.

I want you both to show me how much you know about each other,” he began. “I want you both to make me a collage.” I looked at him for a moment. “A collage?” I asked. “Like, with magazine pictures and glue?” “That’s exactly right,” Father Johnson replied. “And it doesn’t have to be large or elaborate; just use a piece of legal-size paper as the backdrop. I want you to fill it with pictures that represent all the things you know about the other person. Bring it to your session next week, and we’ll look at them together.” This was an unexpected development. I made the mistake of glancing at Marlboro Man, who I imagined had never felt more uncomfortable in his life than he did once he faced the prospect of sitting down and working with paper and glue in an effort to prove to someone else how much he knew about the woman he was going to marry. He tried to keep a straight face, to remain respectful, but I’d studied his beautiful features enough to know when things were going on under the surface. Marlboro Man had been such a good sport through our series of premarital training. And this--a collage assignment--was his reward. I put on a happy face. “Well, that’ll be fun!” I said, enthusiastically. “We can sit down and do it together sometime this week…” “No, no, no…,” Father Johnson scolded, waving his hands at me. “You can’t do it together. The whole point is to independently sit down and make the collage without the other person present.” Father Johnson was awfully bossy. We shook hands, promised to bring our assignments to the following week’s appointment, and made our way to the parking lot. Once out of the church doors, Marlboro Man swatted me. “Ow!” I shrieked, feeling stung. “What was that for?” “Just your Tuesday spanking,” Marlboro Man answered. I smiled. I’d always loved Tuesdays. We hopped in the pickup, and Marlboro Man started the engine. “Hey,” he said, turning to me. “Got any magazines I can borrow?” I giggled as Marlboro Man pulled away from the church. “I could use some glue, too,” he added. “I don’t think I have any at my house.

Marlboro Man and I walked together to our vehicles--symbolically parked side by side in the hotel lot under a cluster of redbud trees. Sleepiness had definitely set in; my head fell on his shoulder as we walked. His ample arms gripped my waist reassuringly. And the second we reached my silver Camry, the temperature began to rise. “I can’t wait till tomorrow,” he said, backing me against the door of my car, his lips moving toward my neck. Every nerve receptor in my body simultaneously fired as his strong hands gripped the small of my back; my hands pulled him closer and closer. We kissed and kissed some more in the hotel parking lot, flirting dangerously with taking it a step--or five--further. Out-of-control prairie fires were breaking out inside my body; even my knees felt hot. I couldn’t believe this man, this Adonis who held me so completely and passionately in his arms, was actually mine. That in a mere twenty-four hours, I’d have him all to myself. It’s too good to be true, I thought as my right leg wrapped around his left and my fingers squeezed his chiseled bicep. It was as if I’d been locked inside a chocolate shop that also sold delicious chardonnay and french fries…and played Gone With the Wind and Joan Crawford movies all day long--and had been told “Have fun.” He was going to be my own private playground for the rest of my life. I almost felt guilty, like I was taking something away from the world. It was so dark outside, I forgot where I was. I had no sense of geography or time or space, not even when he took my face in his hands and touched his forehead to mine, closing his eyes, as if to savor the powerful moment. “I love you,” he whispered as I died right there on the spot. It wasn’t convenient, my dying the night before my wedding. I didn’t know how my mom was going to explain it to the florist. But she’d have to; I was totally done for. I’d had half a glass of wine all evening but felt completely inebriated. When I finally arrived home, I had no idea how I’d gotten there. I was intoxicated--drunk on a cowboy. A cowboy who, in less than twenty-four hours, would become my husband.

It’s so weird that it’s Christmas Eve,” I said, clinking my glass to his. It was the first time I’d spent the occasion apart from my parents. “I know,” he said. “I was just thinking that.” We both dug into our steaks. I wished I’d made myself two. The meat was tender and flavorful, and perfectly medium-rare. I felt like Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby, when she barely seared a steak in the middle of the afternoon and devoured it like a wolf. Except I didn’t have a pixie cut. And I wasn’t harboring Satan’s spawn. “Hey,” I began, looking into his eyes. “I’m sorry I’ve been so…so pathetic since, like, the day we got married.” He smiled and took a swig of Dr Pepper. “You haven’t been pathetic,” he said. He was a terrible liar. “I haven’t?” I asked, incredulous, savoring the scrumptious red meat. “No,” he answered, taking another bite of steak and looking me squarely in the eye. “You haven’t.” I was feeling argumentative. “Have you forgotten about my inner ear disturbance, which caused me to vomit all across Australia?” He paused, then countered, “Have you forgotten about the car I rented us?” I laughed, then struck back. “Have you forgotten about the poisonous lobster I ordered us?” Then he pulled out all the stops. “Have you forgotten all the money we lost?” I refused to be thwarted. “Have you forgotten that I found out I was pregnant after we got back from our honeymoon and I called my parents to tell them and I didn’t get a chance because my mom left my dad and I went on to have a nervous breakdown and had morning sickness for six weeks and now my jeans don’t fit?” I was the clear winner here. “Have you forgotten that I got you pregnant?” he said, grinning. I smiled and took the last bite of my steak. Marlboro Man looked down at my plate. “Want some of mine?” he asked. He’d only eaten half of his. “Sure,” I said, ravenously and unabashedly sticking my fork into a big chuck of his rib eye. I was so grateful for so many things: Marlboro Man, his outward displays of love, the new life we shared together, the child growing inside my body. But at that moment, at that meal, I was so grateful to be a carnivore again.

One day Marlboro Man invited my sister, Betsy, and me to the ranch to work cattle. She was home from college and bored, and Marlboro Man wanted Tim to meet another member of my family. “Working cattle” is the term used to describe the process of pushing cattle, one by one, through a working chute, during which time they are branded, dehorned, ear tagged, and “doctored” (temperature taken, injections given). The idea is to get all the trauma and mess over with in one fell swoop so the animals can spend their days grazing peacefully in the pasture. When Betsy and I pulled up and parked, Tim greeted us at the chute and immediately assigned us our duties. He handed my sister a hot shot, which is used to gently zap the animal’s behind to get it to move through the chute. It’s considered the easy job. “You’ll be pushing ’em through,” Tim told Betsy. She dutifully took the hot shot, studying the oddly shaped object in her hands. Next, Tim handed me an eight-inch-long, thick-gauge probe with some kind of electronic device attached. “You’ll be taking their temperature,” Tim informed me. Easy enough, I thought. But how does this thing fit into its ear? Or does it slide under its arm somehow? Perhaps I insert it under the tongue? Will the cows be okay with this? Tim showed me to my location--at the hind end of the chute. “You just wait till the steer gets locked in the chute,” Tim directed. “Then you push the stick all the way in and wait till I tell you to take it out.” Come again? The bottom fell out of my stomach as my sister shot me a worried look, and I suddenly wished I’d eaten something before we came. I felt weak. I didn’t dare question the brother of the man who made my heart go pitter-pat, but…in the bottom? Up the bottom? Seriously? Before I knew it, the first animal had entered the chute. Various cowboys were at different positions around the animal and began carrying out their respective duties. Tim looked at me and yelled, “Stick it in!” With utter trepidation, I slid the wand deep into the steer’s rectum. This wasn’t natural. This wasn’t normal. At least it wasn’t for me. This was definitely against God’s plan.

So,” Marlboro Man began over dinner one night. “How many kids do you want to have?” I almost choked on my medium-rare T-bone, the one he’d grilled for me so expertly with his own two hands. “Oh my word,” I replied, swallowing hard. I didn’t feel so hungry anymore. “I don’t know…how many kids do you want to have?” “Oh, I don’t know,” he said with a mischievous grin. “Six or so. Maybe seven.” I felt downright nauseated. Maybe it was a defense mechanism, my body preparing me for the dreaded morning sickness that, I didn’t know at the time, awaited me. Six or seven kids? Righty-oh, Marlboro Man. Righty…no. “Ha-ha ha-ha ha. Ha.” I laughed, tossing my long hair over my shoulder and acting like he’d made a big joke. “Yeah, right! Ha-ha. Six kids…can you imagine?” Ha-ha. Ha. Ha.” The laughter was part humor, part nervousness, part terror. We’d never had a serious discussion about children before. “Why?” He looked a little more serious this time. “How many kids do you think we should have?” I smeared my mashed potatoes around on my plate and felt my ovaries leap inside my body. This was not a positive development. Stop that! I ordered, silently. Settle down! Go back to sleep! I blinked and took a swig of the wine Marlboro Man had bought me earlier in the day. “Let’s see…,” I answered, drumming my fingernails on the table. “How ’bout one? Or maybe…one and a half?” I sucked in my stomach--another defensive move in an attempt to deny what I didn’t realize at the time was an inevitable, and jiggly, future. “One?” he replied. “Aw, that’s not nearly enough of a work crew for me. I’ll need a lot more help than that!” Then he chuckled, standing up to clear our plates as I sat there in a daze, having no idea whether or not he was kidding. It was the strangest conversation I’d ever had. I felt like the roller coaster had just pulled away from the gate, and the entire amusement park was pitch-black. I had no idea what was in front of me; I was entering a foreign land. My ovaries, on the other hand, were doing backflips, as if they’d been wandering, parched, in a barren wasteland and finally, miraculously, happened upon a roaring waterfall. And that waterfall was about six feet tall, with gray hair and bulging biceps. They never knew they could experience such hope.

I need to check your vitals, hon,” she explained. It had been several hours since I’d given birth. I guess this was the routine. She felt my pulse, palpated my legs, asked if I had pain anywhere, and lightly pressed on my abdomen, the whole while making sure I wasn’t showing signs of a blockage or a blood clot, a fever or a hemorrhage. I stared dreamily at Marlboro Man, who gave me a wink or two. I hoped he would, in time, be able to see past the vomit. The nurse then began a battery of questions. “So, no pain?” “Nope. I feel fine now.” “No chills?” “Not at all.” “Have you been able to pass gas in the past few hours?” *Insert awkward ten-second pause* I couldn’t have heard her right. “What?” I asked, staring at her. “Have you been able to pass gas lightly?” *Another awkward pause* What kind of question is this? “Wait…,” I asked. “What?” “Sweetie, have you been able to pass gas today?” I stared at her blankly. “I don’t…” “…Pass gas? You? Today?” She was unrelenting. I continued my blank, desperate stare, completely incapable of registering her question. Throughout the entire course of my pregnancy, I’d gone to great lengths to maintain a certain level of glamour and vanity. Even during labor, I’d attempted to remain the ever-fresh and vibrant new wife, going so far as to reapply tinted lip balm before the epidural so I wouldn’t look pale. I’d also restrained myself during the pushing stage, afraid I’d lose control of my bowels, which would have been the kiss of death upon my pride and my marriage; I would have had to just divorce my husband and start fresh with someone else. I had never once so much as passed gas in front of Marlboro Man. As far as he was concerned, my body lacked this function altogether. So why was I being forced to answer these questions now? I hadn’t done anything wrong. “I’m sorry…,” I stammered. “I don’t understand the question…” The nurse began again, seemingly unconcerned with my lack of comprehension skills. “Have you…” Marlboro Man, lovingly holding our baby and patiently listening all this time from across the room, couldn’t take it anymore. “Honey! She wants to know if you’ve been able to fart today!” The nurse giggled. “Okay, well maybe that’s a little more clear.” I pulled the covers over my head. I was not having this discussion.

I looked around and realized we were headed down a different road than Marlboro Man would normally take. “I have to give you your wedding present,” Marlboro Man said before I could ask where we were going. “I can’t wait a month before I give it to you.” Butterflies fluttered in my stomach. “But…,” I stammered. “I haven’t gotten yours yet.” Marlboro Man clasped my hand, continuing to look forward at the road. “Yes you have,” he said, bringing my hand to his lips and turning me to a pool of melted butter right in his big Ford truck. We wound through several curves in the road, and I tried to discern whether I’d been there before. My sense of direction was lousy; everything looked the same to me. Finally, just as the sun was dipping below the horizon, we came upon an old barn. Marlboro Man pulled up beside it and parked. Confused, I looked around. He got me a barn? “What…what are we doing here?” I asked. Marlboro Man didn’t answer. Instead, he just turned off the pickup, turned to me…and smiled. “What is it?” I asked as Marlboro Man and I exited the pickup and walked toward the barn. “You’ll see,” he replied. He definitely had something up his sleeve. I was nervous. I always hated opening gifts in front of the person who gave them to me. It made me uncomfortable, as if I were sitting in a dark room with a huge spotlight shining on my head. I squirmed with discomfort. I wanted to turn and run away. Hide in his pickup. Hide in the pasture. Lie low for a few weeks. I didn’t want a wedding present. I was weird that way. “But…but…,” I said, trying to back out. “But I don’t have your wedding present yet.” As if anything would have derailed him at that point. “Don’t worry about that,” Marlboro Man replied, hugging me around the waist as we walked. He smelled so good, and I inhaled deeply. “Besides, we can share this one.” That’s strange, I thought. Any fleeting ideas I’d had that he’d be giving me a shiny bracelet or sparkly necklace or other bauble suddenly seemed far-fetched. How could he and I share the same tennis bracelet? Maybe he got me one of those two-necklace sets, the ones with the halved hearts, I thought, and he’ll wear one half and I’ll wear the other. I couldn’t exactly picture it, but Marlboro Man had never been above surprising me. Then again, we were walking toward a barn.

My phone rang at midnight, just as I was clearing my bed of the scissors and magazines and glue. It was Marlboro Man, who’d just returned to his home after processing 250 head of cattle in the dark of night. He just wanted to say good night. I would forever love that about him. “What’ve you been doing tonight?” he asked. His voice was scratchy. He sounded spent. “Oh, I just finished up my homework assignment,” I answered, rubbing my eyes and glancing at the collage on my bed. “Oh…good job,” he said. “I’ve got to go get some sleep so I can get over there and get after it in the morning…” His voice drifted off. Poor Marlboro Man--I felt so sorry for him. He had cows on one side, Father Johnson on the other, a wedding in less than a week, and a three-week vacation in another continent. The last thing he needed to do was flip through old issues of Seventeen magazine for pictures of lip gloss and Sun-In. The last thing he needed to deal with was Elmer’s glue. My mind raced, and my heart spoke up. “Hey, listen…,” I said, suddenly thinking of a brilliant idea. “I have an idea. Just sleep in tomorrow morning--you’re so tired…” “Nah, that’s okay,” he said. “I need to do the--” “I’ll do your collage for you!” I interrupted. It seemed like the perfect solution. Marlboro Man chuckled. “Ha--no way. I do my own homework around here.” “No, seriously!” I insisted. “I’ll do it--I have all the stuff here and I’m totally in the zone right now. I can whip it out in less than an hour, then we can both sleep till at least eight.” As if he’d ever slept till eight in his life. “Nah…I’ll be fine,” he said. “I’ll see you in the morning…” “But…but…,” I tried again. “Then I can sleep till at least eight.” “Good night…” Marlboro Man trailed off, probably asleep with his ear to the receiver. I made the command decision to ignore his protest and spent the next hour making his collage. I poured my whole heart and soul into it, delving deep and pulling out all the stops, marveling as I worked at how well I actually knew myself, and occasionally cracking up at the fact that I was doing Marlboro Man’s premarital homework for him--homework that was mandatory if we were to be married by this Episcopal priest. But on the outside chance Marlboro Man’s tired body was to accidentally oversleep, at least he wouldn’t have to walk in the door of Father Johnson’s study empty-handed.

With Marlboro Man’s strong hands massaging my tired shoulders, I walked in front of him down the narrow porch toward the driveway, where my dusty car awaited me. But before I could take the step down he stopped me, grabbing a belt loop on the back of my Anne Kleins, and pulling me back toward him with rapid--almost shocking--force. “Woooo!” I exclaimed, startled at the jolt. My cry was so shrill, the coyotes answered back. I felt awkward. Marlboro Man moved in for the kill, pulling my back tightly against his chest and wrapping his arms slowly around my waist. As I rested my arms on top of his hands and leaned my head back toward his shoulder, he buried his face in my neck. Suddenly, September seemed entirely too far away. I had to have this man to myself 24/7, as soon as humanly possible. “I can’t wait to marry you,” he whispered, each word sending a thousand shivers to my toes. I knew exactly what he meant. He wasn’t talking about the wedding cake. I was speechless, as usual. He had that effect on me. Because whatever he said, when it came to his feelings about me or his reflections on our relationship, made whatever I’d respond with sound ridiculously…lame…bumbling…awkward. If ever I said anything to him in return, it was something along the lines of “Yeah…me, too” or “I feel the same way” or the equally dumb “Aww, that’s nice.” So I’d learned to just soak up the moment and not try to match him…but to show him I felt the same way. This time was no different; I reached my arm backward, caressing the nape of his neck as he nuzzled his face into mine, then turned around suddenly and threw my arms around him with every ounce of passion in my body. Minutes later, we were back at the sliding glass door that led inside the house--me, leaning against the glass, Marlboro Man anchoring me there with his strong, convincing lips. I was a goner. My right leg hooked slowly around his calf. And then, the sound--the loud ringing of the rotary phone inside. Marlboro Man ignored it through three rings, but it was late, and curiosity took over. “I’d better get that,” he said, each word dripping with heat. He ran inside to answer the phone, leaving me alone in a sultry, smoky cloud. Saved by the bell, I thought. Damn. I was dizzy, unable to steady myself. Was it the wine? Wait…I hadn’t had any wine that night. I was drunk on his muscles. Wasted on his masculinity.

Marlboro Man paused, his eyes piercing through to my marrow. We’d started out watching the sunset over the ranch, sitting on the tailgate of his pickup, legs dangling playfully over the edge. By the time the sun had gone down, we were lying down, legs overlapping, as the sky turned blacker and blacker. And making out wildly. Making out, oh, so very wildly. I didn’t want to wait for him to bring it up again--the dreaded subject of Chicago. I’d avoided it like the plague for the past several days, not wanting to face the reality of my impending move, of walking away from my new love so soon after we’d found each other. But now the subject wasn’t so scary; it was safe. I’d made the decision, at least for now, to stay--I just had to tell Marlboro Man. And finally, in between kisses, the words bubbled suddenly and boldly to the surface; I could no longer contain them. But before I had a chance to say them, Marlboro Man opened his mouth and began to speak. “Oh no,” he said, a pained expression on his face. “Don’t tell me--you’re leaving tomorrow.” He ran his fingers through my hair and touched his forehead to mine. I smiled, giggling inside at the secret I was seconds away from spilling. A herd of cows mooed in the distance. Serenading us. “Um…no,” I said, finding it hard to believe what I was about to tell him. “I’m not…I’m…I’m not going.” He paused, then pulled his face away from mine, allowing just enough distance between us for him to pull focus. “What?” he asked, is strong fingers still grasping my hair. A tentative smile appeared on his face. I breathed in a deep dose of night air, trying to calm my schoolgirl nervousness. “I, umm…” I began. “I decided to stick around here a little while.” There. I’d said it. This was all officially real. Without a moment of hesitation, Marlboro Man wrapped his ample arms around my waist. Then, in what seemed to be less than a second, he hoisted me from my horizontal position on the bed of his pickup until we were both standing in front of each other. Scooping me off my feet, he raised me up to his height so his icy blue eyes were level with mine. “Wait…are you serious?” he asked, taking my face in his hands. Squaring it in front of his. Looking me in the eye. “You’re not going?” “Nope,” I answered. “Whoa,” he said, smiling and moving in for a long, impassioned kiss on the back of his Ford F250. “I can’t believe it,” he continued, squeezing me tightly.

Marlboro Man opened the passenger door of the semi and allowed me to climb out in front of him, while Tim exited the driver-side door to see us off. That wasn’t so bad, I thought as I made my way down the steps. Aside from the manicure remark and my sweating problem, meeting Marlboro Man’s brother had gone remarkably well. I looked okay that evening, had managed a couple of witty remarks, and had worn just the right clothing to conceal my nervousness. Life was good. Then, because the Gods of Embarrassment seemed hell-bent on making me look bad, I lost my balance on the last step, hooking the heel of my stupid black boots on the grate of the step and awkwardly grabbing the handlebar to save myself from falling to my death onto the gravel driveway below. But though I stopped myself from wiping out, my purse flew off my arm and landed, facedown, on Tim’s driveway, violently spilling its contents all over the gravel. Only a woman can know the dreaded feeling of spilling her purse in the company of men. Suddenly my soul was everywhere, laid bare for Marlboro Man and his brother to see: year-old lip gloss, a leaky pen, wadded gum wrappers, and a hairbrush loaded up with hundreds, if not thousands, of my stringy auburn hairs. And men don’t understand wads of long hair--for all they knew, I had some kind of follicular disorder and was going bald. There were no feminine products, but there was a package of dental floss, with a messy, eight-inch piece dangling from the opening and blowing in the wind. And there were Tic Tacs. Lots and lots of Tic Tacs. Orange ones. Then there was the money. Loose ones and fives and tens and twenties that had been neatly folded together and tucked into a pocket inside my purse were now blowing wildly around Tim’s driveway, swept away by the strengthening wind from an approaching storm. Nothing in my life could have prepared me for the horror of watching Marlboro Man, my new love, and his brother, Tim, whom I’d just met, chivalrously dart around Tim’s driveway, trying valiantly to save my wayward dollars, all because I couldn’t keep my balance on the steps of their shiny new semi. I left my car at Tim’s for the evening, and when we pulled away in Marlboro Man’s pickup, I stared out the window, shaking my head and apologizing for being such a colossal dork. When we got to the highway, Marlboro Man glanced at me as he made a right-hand turn. “Yeah,” he said, consoling me. “But you’re my dork.

The wedding rehearsal itself was uneventful until Father Johnson decided it was time to show Marlboro Man and me the proper way to walk to the marriage altar. Evidently, all of Father Johnson’s theological studies and work was destined to culminate in whether or not Marlboro Man and I approached the altar in the perfectly correct and proper way, because he was intent on driving the point home. “At this point,” Father Johnson instructed, “you’ll start to turn and Ree will take your arm.” He lightly pushed Marlboro Man in the proper direction, and the two of us began walking forward. “Nope, nope, nope,” Father Johnson said authoritatively. “Come back, come back.” Marlboro Man’s college friends snickered. “Oh…what did we do wrong?” I asked Father Johnson humbly. Maybe he’d discovered the truth about the collages. He showed us again. Marlboro Man was to turn and begin walking, then wait for me briefly. Then, as I took his arm, he was to lead me to the altar. Wait. Wasn’t that what we just did? We tried again, and Father Johnson corrected us…again. “Nope, nope, nope,” he said, pulling us both by the arm until we were back in our starting position. Marlboro Man’s friends chuckled. My stomach growled. And Marlboro Man kept quietly restrained, despite the fact that he was being repeatedly corrected by his fiancée’s interim minister for something that arguably wasn’t all that relevant to the commitment we were making to spend the rest of our lives together. We went through no fewer than seven more takes, and with each redo I began to realize that this was Father Johnson’s final test for us. Forget the collage assignment--that was small potatoes. Whether we could keep our cool and take instruction when a nice steak dinner and drinks awaited us at the country club was Father Johnson’s real decider of whether or not Marlboro Man and I were mature, composed, and levelheaded enough to proceed with the wedding. And while I knew Marlboro Man would grit his teeth and bear it, I wasn’t entirely sure I could. But I didn’t have to. On the beginning of the eighth run, just after Father Johnson gave us another “Nope. You’re not getting it right, kids…” Mike’s loud voice echoed throughout the wood-and-marble sanctuary. “Oh, c-c-c-c-come on, Father Johnson!” The chuckles turned into laughter. And out of the corner of my eye I saw Tony giving Mike a subtle high five. Thank goodness for Mike. He was hungry. He wanted to get on to the party.

We needed to drive down the road a couple of miles to meet the rest of the cowboys and gather the cattle from there. “Mom, why don’t you and Ree go ahead in her car and we’ll be right behind you,” Marlboro Man directed. His mother and I walked outside, climbed in the car, and headed down the road. We exchanged pleasant small talk. She was poised and genuine, and I chattered away, relieved that she was so approachable. Then, about a mile into our journey, she casually mentioned, “You might watch that turn up ahead; it’s a little sharp.” “Oh, okay,” I replied, not really listening. Clearly she didn’t know I’d been an L.A. driver for years. Driving was not a problem for me. Almost immediately, I saw a ninety-degree turn right in front of my face, pointing its finger at me and laughing--cackling--at my predicament. I whipped the steering wheel to the left as quickly as I could, skidding on the gravel and stirring up dust. But it was no use--the turn got the better of me, and my car came to rest awkwardly in the ditch, the passenger side a good four feet lower than mine. Marlboro Man’s mother was fine. Lucky for her, there’s really nothing with which to collide on an isolated cattle ranch--no overpasses or concrete dividers or retaining walls or other vehicles. I was fine, too--physically, anyway. My hands were trembling violently. My armpits began to gush perspiration. My car was stuck, the right two tires wedged inextricably in a deep crevice of earth on the side of the road. On the list of the Top Ten Things I’d Want Not to Happen on the First Meeting Between My Boyfriend’s Mother and Me, this would rate about number four. “Oh my word,” I said. “I’m sorry about that.” “Oh, don’t worry about it,” she reassured, looking out the window. “I just hope your car’s okay.” Marlboro Man and his dad pulled up beside us, and they both hopped out of the pickup. Opening my door, Marlboro Man said, “You guys okay?” “We’re fine,” his mother said. “We just got a little busy talking.” I was Lucille Ball. Lucille Ball on steroids and speed and vodka. I was a joke, a caricature, a freak. This couldn’t possibly be happening to me. Not today. Not now. “Okay, I’ll just go home now,” I said, covering my face with my hands. I wanted to be someone else. A normal person, maybe. A good driver, perhaps. Marlboro Man examined my tires, which were completely torn up. “You’re not goin’ anywhere, actually. You guys hop in the pickup.” My car was down for the count.

No matter what level of instruction Marlboro Man gave me, no matter how many pointers, a horse trot for me meant a repeated and violet Slap! Slap! Slap! on the seat of my saddle. My feet were fine--they’d stay securely in the stirrups. But I just couldn’t figure out how to use the muscles in my legs correctly, and I hadn’t yet learned how to post. It was so unpleasant, the whole riding-a-horse business: my bottom would slap, my torso would stiffen, and I’d be sore for days--not to mention that I looked like a complete freak while riding--kind of like a tree trunk with red, stringy hair. Short of taking the rectal temperatures of cows, I’d never felt more out of place doing anything in my life. All of this rushed to the surface when I saw Marlboro Man walking toward me with two of his horses, one of which was clearly meant for me. Where’s my Jeep? I thought. Where’s my torch? I don’t want a horse. My bottom can’t take it. Where’s my Jeep? I’d never wanted to drive a Jeep so much. “Hey,” I said, walking toward him and smiling, trying to appear not only calm but also totally unconcerned about the reality that faced me. “Uh…I thought we were going burning.” I clearly sounded out the g. It was a loud, clanging cymbal. “Oh, we are,” he said, smiling. “But we’ve got to get to some areas the Jeep can’t reach.” My stomach lurched. For more than a couple of seconds, I actually considered feigning illness so I wouldn’t have to go. What can I say? I wondered. That I feel like I’m going to throw up? Or should I just clutch my stomach, groan, then run behind the barn and make dramatic retching sounds? That could be highly effective. Marlboro Man will feel sorry for me and say, “It’s okay…you just go on up to my house and rest. I’ll be back later.” But I don’t think I can go through with it; vomiting is so embarrassing! And besides, if Marlboro Man thinks I vomited, I might not get a kiss today… “Oh, okay,” I said, smiling again and trying to prevent my face from betraying the utter dread that plagued me. I hadn’t noticed, through all my inner torture and turmoil, that Marlboro Man and the horses had been walking closer to me. Before I knew it, Marlboro Man’s right arm was wrapped around my waist while his other hand held the reins of the two horses. In another instant, he pulled me toward him in a tight grip and leaned in for a sweet, tender kiss--a kiss he seemed to savor even after our lips parted. “Good morning,” he said sweetly, grinning that magical grin. My knees went weak. I wasn’t sure if it was the kiss itself…or the dread of riding.

Then he took my arm, in a much softer grip than the one he’d used on our first date when he’d kept me from biting the dust. “No, c’mon,” he said, pulling me closer to him and securing his arms around my waist. I died a thousand deaths as he whispered softly, “What’s wrong?” What could I possibly say? Oh, nothing, it’s just that I’ve been slowly breaking up with my boyfriend from California and I uninvited him to my brother’s wedding last week and I thought everything was fine and then he called last night after I got home from cooking you that Linguine and Clam Sauce you loved so much and he said he was flying here today and I told him not to because there really wasn’t anything else we could possibly talk about and I thought he understood and while I was driving out here just now he called me and it just so happens he’s at the airport right now but I decided not to go because I didn’t want to have a big emotional drama (you mean like the one you’re playing out in Marlboro Man’s kitchen right now?) and I’m finding myself vacillating between sadness over the end of our four-year relationship, regret over not going to see him in person, and confusion over how to feel about my upcoming move to Chicago. And where that will leave you and me, you big hunk of burning love. “I ran over my dog today!” I blubbered and collapsed into another heap of impossible-to-corral tears. Marlboro Man was embracing me tightly now, knowing full well that his arms were the only offering he had for me at that moment. My face was buried in his neck and I continued to laugh, belting out an occasional “I’m sorry” between my sobs, hoping in vain that the laughter would eventually prevail. I wanted to continue, to tell him about J, to give him the complete story behind my unexpected outburst. But “I ran over my dog” was all I could muster. It was the easiest thing to explain. Marlboro Man could understand that, wrap his brain around it. But the uninvited surfer newly-ex-boyfriend dangling at the airport? It was a little more information than I had the strength to share that night. He continued holding me in his kitchen until my chest stopped heaving and the wellspring of snot began to dry. I opened my eyes and found I was in a different country altogether, The Land of His Embrace. It was a peaceful, restful, safe place. Marlboro Man gave me one last comforting hug before our bodies finally separated, and he casually leaned against the counter. “Hey, if it makes you feel any better,” he said, “I’ve run over so many damn dogs out here, I can’t even begin to count them.” It was a much-needed--if unlikely--moment of perspective for me.

Then I heard it--the voice over the CB radio. “You’re on fire! You’re on fire!” The voice repeated, this time with more urgency, “Charlie! Get out! You’re on fire!” I sat there, frozen, unable to process the reality of what I’d just heard. “Oh, shit!” sweet little Charlie yelled, grabbing his door handle. “We’ve got to get out, darlin’--get outta here!” He opened his door, swung his feeble knees around, and let gravity pull him out of the pickup; I, in turn, did the same. Covering my head instinctively as I ditched, I darted away from the vehicle, running smack-dab into Marlboro Man’s brother, Tim, in the process. He was spraying the side of Charlie’s pickup, which, by now, was engulfed in flames. I kept running until I was sure I was out of the path of danger. “Ree! Where’d you come from?!?” Tim yelled, barely taking his eyes off the fire on the truck, which, by then, was almost extinguished. Tim hadn’t known I was on the scene. “You okay?” he yelled, glancing over to make sure I wasn’t on fire, too. A cowboy rushed to Charlie’s aid on the other side of the truck. He was fine, too, bless his heart. By now Marlboro Man had become aware of the commotion, not because he’d seen it happen through the smoke, but because his hose had reached the end of its slack and Charlie’s truck was no longer following behind. Another spray truck had already rushed over to Marlboro Man’s spot and resumed chasing the fire--the same fire that might have gobbled up a rickety, old spray truck, an equally rickety man named Charlie, and me. Luckily Tim had been nearby when a wind gust blew the flames over Charlie’s truck, and had acted quickly. The fire on the truck was out by now, and Marlboro Man rushed over, grabbed my shoulders, and looked me over--trying, in all the confusion, to make sure I was in one piece. And I was. Physically, I was perfectly fine. My nervous system, on the other hand, was a shambles. “You okay?” he shouted over the crackling sounds of the fire. All I could do was nod and bite my lip to keep from losing it. Can I go home now? was the only thing going through my mind. That, and I want my mommy. The fire was farther away by now, but it seemed to be growing in intensity. Even I could tell the wind had picked up. Marlboro Man and Tim looked at each other…and burst out in nervous laughter--the kind of laugh you laugh when you almost fall but don’t; when your car almost goes off a cliff but comes to a stop right at the edge; when your winning team almost misses the winning pass but doesn’t; or when your fiancée and a local cowboy are almost burned alive…but aren’t. I might have laughed, too, if I could muster any breath.

But then the cowboy standing in front of you smiles gently and says, “You sure?” Those two simple words opened up the Floodgates of Hell. I smiled and laughed, embarrassed, even as two big, thick tears rolled down both my cheeks. Then I laughed again and blew a nice, clear explosion of snot from my nose. Of all the things that had happened that day, that single moment might have been the worst. “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I insisted as another pair of tears spilled out. I scrambled around the kitchen counter and found a paper towel, using it to dab the salty wetness on my face and the copious slime under my nose. “I am so, so sorry.” I inhaled deeply, my chest beginning to contract and convulse. This was an ugly cry. I was absolutely horrified. “Hey…what’s wrong?” Marlboro Man asked. Bless his heart, he had to have been as uncomfortable as I was. He’d grown up on a cattle ranch, after all, with two brothers, no sisters, and a mother who was likely as lacking in histrionics as I wished I was at that moment. He led a quiet life out here on the ranch, isolated from the drama of city life. Judging from what he’d told me so far, he hadn’t invited many women over to his house for dinner. And now he had one blubbering uncontrollably in his kitchen. I’d better hurry up and enjoy this evening, I told myself. He won’t be inviting me to any more dinners after this. I blew my nose on the paper towel. I wanted to go hide in the bathroom. Then he took my arm, in a much softer grip than the one he’d used on our first date when he’d kept me from biting the dust. “No, c’mon,” he said, pulling me closer to him and securing his arms around my waist. I died a thousand deaths as he whispered softly, “What’s wrong?” What could I possibly say? Oh, nothing, it’s just that I’ve been slowly breaking up with my boyfriend from California and I uninvited him to my brother’s wedding last week and I thought everything was fine and then he called last night after I got home from cooking you that Linguine and Clam Sauce you loved so much and he said he was flying here today and I told him not to because there really wasn’t anything else we could possibly talk about and I thought he understood and while I was driving out here just now he called me and it just so happens he’s at the airport right now but I decided not to go because I didn’t want to have a big emotional drama (you mean like the one you’re playing out in Marlboro Man’s kitchen right now?) and I’m finding myself vacillating between sadness over the end of our four-year relationship, regret over not going to see him in person, and confusion over how to feel about my upcoming move to Chicago. And where that will leave you and me, you big hunk of burning love.

Miraculously, thirty minutes later I found Marlboro Man’s brother’s house. As I pulled up, I saw Marlboro Man’s familiar white pickup parked next to a very large, imposing semi. He and his brother were sitting inside the cab. Looking up and smiling, Marlboro Man motioned for me to join them. I waved, getting out of my car and obnoxiously taking my purse with me. To add insult to injury, I pressed the button on my keyless entry to lock my doors and turn on my car alarm, not realizing how out of place the dreadful chirp! chirp! must have sounded amidst all the bucolic silence. As I made my way toward the monster truck to meet my new love’s only brother, I reflected that not only had I never in my life been inside the cab of a semi, but also I wasn’t sure I’d ever been within a hundred feet of one. My armpits were suddenly clammy and moist, my body trembling nervously at the prospect of not only meeting Tim but also climbing into a vehicle nine times the size of my Toyota Camry, which, at the time, was the largest car I’d ever owned. I was nervous. What would I do in there? Marlboro Man opened the passenger door, and I grabbed the large handlebar on the side of the cab, hoisting myself up onto the spiked metal steps of the semi. “Come on in,” he said as he ushered me into the cab. Tim was in the driver’s seat. “Ree, this is my brother, Tim.” Tim was handsome. Rugged. Slightly dusty, as if he’d just finished working. I could see a slight resemblance to Marlboro Man, a familiar twinkle in his eye. Tim extended his hand, leaving the other on the steering wheel of what I would learn was a brand-spanking-new cattle truck, just hours old. “So, how do you like this vehicle?” Tim asked, smiling widely. He looked like a kid in a candy shop. “It’s nice,” I replied, looking around the cab. There were lots of gauges. Lots of controls. I wanted to crawl into the back and see what the sleeping quarters were like, and whether there was a TV. Or a Jacuzzi. “Want to take it for a spin?” Tim asked. I wanted to appear capable, strong, prepared for anything. “Sure!” I responded, shrugging my shoulders. I got ready to take the wheel. Marlboro Man chuckled, and Tim remained in his seat, saying, “Oh, maybe you’d better not. You might break a fingernail.” I looked down at my fresh manicure. It was nice of him to notice. “Plus,” he continued, “I don’t think you’d be able to shift gears.” Was he making fun of me? My armpits were drenched. Thank God I’d work black that night. After ten more minutes of slightly uncomfortable small talk, Marlboro Man saved my by announcing, “Well, I think we’ll head out, Slim.” “Okay, Slim,” Tim replied. “Nice meeting you, Ree.” He flashed his nice, familiar smile. He was definitely cute. He was definitely Marlboro Man’s brother. But he was nothing like the real thing.

You’re…you’re what? Where?” I stood up and glimpsed myself in the mirror. I was a vision, having changed into satin pajama pants, a torn USC sweatshirt, and polka-dotted toe socks, and to top it off, my hair was fastened in a haphazard knot on the top of my head with a no. 2 Ticonderoga pencil. Who wouldn’t want me? “I’m outside,” he repeated, throwing in a trademark chuckle just to be extra mean. “Get out here.” “But…but…,” I stalled, hurriedly sliding the pencil out of my hair and running around the room, stripping off my pathetic house clothes and searching in vain for my favorite faded jeans. “But…but…I’m in my pajamas.” Another trademark chuckle. “So?” he asked. “You’d better get out here or I’m comin’ in…” “Okay, okay…,” I replied. “I’ll be right down.” Panting, I settled for my second-favorite jeans and my favorite sweater of all time, a faded light blue turtleneck I’d worn so much, it was almost part of my anatomy. Brushing my teeth in ten seconds flat, I scurried down the stairs and out the front door. Marlboro Man was standing outside his pickup, hands inside his pockets, his back resting against the driver-side door. He grinned, and as I walked toward him, he stood up and walked toward me, too. We met in the middle--in between his vehicle and the front door--and without a moment of hesitation, greeted each other with a long, emotional kiss. There was nothing funny or lighthearted about it. That kiss meant business. Our lips separated for a short moment. “I like your sweater,” he said, looking at the light blue cotton rib as if he’d seen it before. I’d hurriedly thrown it on the night we’d met a few months earlier. “I think I wore this to the J-bar that night…,” I said. “Do you remember?” “Ummm, yeah,” he said, pulling me even closer. “I remember.” Maybe the sweater had magical powers. I’d have to be sure to hold on to it. We kissed again, and I shivered in the cold night air. Wanting to get me out of the cold, he led me to his pickup and opened the door so we could both climb in. The pickup was still warm and toasty, like a campfire was burning in the backseat. I looked at him, giggled like a schoolgirl, and asked, “What have you been doing all this time?” “Oh, I was headed home,” he said, fiddling with my fingers. “But then I just turned around; I couldn’t help it.” His hand found my upper back and pulled me closer. The windows were getting foggy. I felt like I was seventeen. “I’ve got this problem,” he continued, in between kisses. “Yeah?” I asked, playing dumb. My hand rested on his left bicep. My attraction soared to the heavens. He caressed the back of my head, messing up my hair…but I didn’t care; I had other things on my mind. “I’m crazy about you,” he said. By now I was on his lap, right in the front seat of his Diesel Ford F250, making out with him as if I’d just discovered the concept. I had no idea how I’d gotten there--the diesel pickup or his lap. But I was there. And, burying my face in his neck, I quietly repeated his sentiments. “I’m crazy about you, too.

I took a shower after dinner and changed into comfortable Christmas Eve pajamas, ready to settle in for a couple of movies on the couch. I remembered all the Christmas Eves throughout my life--the dinners and wrapping presents and midnight mass at my Episcopal church. It all seemed so very long ago. Walking into the living room, I noticed a stack of beautifully wrapped rectangular boxes next to the tiny evergreen tree, which glowed with little white lights. Boxes that hadn’t been there minutes before. “What…,” I said. We’d promised we wouldn’t get each other any gifts that year. “What?” I demanded. Marlboro Man smiled, taking pleasure in the surprise. “You’re in trouble,” I said, glaring at him as I sat down on the beige Berber carpet next to the tree. “I didn’t get you anything…you told me not to.” “I know,” he said, sitting down next to me. “But I don’t really want anything…except a backhoe.” I cracked up. I didn’t even know what a backhoe was. I ran my hand over the box on the top of the stack. It was wrapped in brown paper and twine--so unadorned, so simple, I imagined that Marlboro Man could have wrapped it himself. Untying the twine, I opened the first package. Inside was a pair of boot-cut jeans. The wide navy elastic waistband was a dead giveaway: they were made especially for pregnancy. “Oh my,” I said, removing the jeans from the box and laying them out on the floor in front of me. “I love them.” “I didn’t want you to have to rig your jeans for the next few months,” Marlboro Man said. I opened the second box, and then the third. By the seventh box, I was the proud owner of a complete maternity wardrobe, which Marlboro Man and his mother had secretly assembled together over the previous couple of weeks. There were maternity jeans and leggings, maternity T-shirts and darling jackets. Maternity pajamas. Maternity sweats. I caressed each garment, smiling as I imagined the time it must have taken for them to put the whole collection together. “Thank you…,” I began. My nose stung as tears formed in my eyes. I couldn’t imagine a more perfect gift. Marlboro Man reached for my hand and pulled me over toward him. Our arms enveloped each other as they had on his porch the first time he’d professed his love for me. In the grand scheme of things, so little time had passed since that first night under the stars. But so much had changed. My parents. My belly. My wardrobe. Nothing about my life on this Christmas Eve resembled my life on that night, when I was still blissfully unaware of the brewing thunderstorm in my childhood home and was packing for Chicago…nothing except Marlboro Man, who was the only thing, amidst all the conflict and upheaval, that made any sense to me anymore. “Are you crying?” he asked. “No,” I said, my lip quivering. “Yep, you’re crying,” he said, laughing. It was something he’d gotten used to. “I’m not crying,” I said, snorting and wiping snot from my nose. “I’m not.” We didn’t watch movies that night. Instead, he picked me up and carried me to our cozy bedroom, where my tears--a mixture of happiness, melancholy, and holiday nostalgia--would disappear completely.

I kept driving for a while, then stopped on the side of the road. Shining my brights on the road in front of me, I watched out for Leatherface while dialing Marlboro Man on my car phone. My pulse was rapid out of sheer terror and embarrassment; my face was hot. Lost and helpless on a county road the same night I’d emotionally decompensated in his kitchen--this was not exactly the image I was dying to project to this new man in my life. But I had no other option, short of continuing to drive aimlessly down one generic road after another or parking on the side of the road and going to sleep, which really wasn’t an option at all, considering Norman Bates was likely wandering around the area. With Ted Bundy. And Charles Manson. And Grendel. Marlboro Man answered, “Hello?” He must have been almost asleep. “Um…um…hi,” I said, squinting in shame. “Hey there,” he replied. “This is Ree,” I said. I just wanted to make sure he knew. “Yeah…I know,” he said. “Um, funniest thing happened,” I continued, my hands in a death grip on the steering wheel. “Seems I got a little turned around and I’m kinda sorta maybe perhaps a little tiny bit lost.” He chuckled. “Where are you?” “Um, well, that’s just it,” I replied, looking around the utter darkness for any ounce of remaining pride. “I don’t really know.” Marlboro Man assumed control, telling me to drive until I found an intersection, then read him the numbers on the small green county road sign, numbers that meant absolutely nothing to me, considering I’d never even heard the term “county road” before, but that would help Marlboro Man pinpoint exactly where on earth I was. “Okay, here we go,” I called out. “It says, um…CR 4521.” “Hang tight,” he said. “I’ll be right there.” Marlboro Man was right there, in less than five minutes. Once I determined the white pickup pulling beside my car was his and not that of Jason Voorhees, I rolled down my window. Marlboro Man did the same and said, with a huge smile, “Having trouble?” He was enjoying this, in the exact same way he’d enjoyed waking me from a sound sleep when he’d called at seven a few days earlier. I was having no trouble establishing myself as the clueless pansy-ass of our rapidly developing relationship. “Follow me,” he said. I did. I’ll follow you anywhere, I thought as I drove in the dust trail behind his pickup. Within minutes we were back at the highway and I heaved a sigh of relief that I was going to survive. Humiliated and wanting to get out of his hair, I intended to give him a nice, simple wave and drive away in shame. Instead, I saw Marlboro Man walking toward my car. Staring at his Wranglers, I rolled down my window again so I could hear what he had to say. He didn’t say anything at all. He opened my car door, pulled me out of the car, and kissed me as I’d never been kissed before. And there we were. Making out wildly at the intersection of a county road and a rural highway, dust particles in the air mixing with the glow of my headlights to create a cattle ranch version of London fog. It would have made the perfect cover of a romance novel had it not been for the fact that my car phone, suddenly, began ringing loudly.

I’d known him just ten days, and it had just left his mouth in an unexpected whisper. It had been purely instinctive, it seemed--something entirely unplanned. He clearly hadn’t planned to say those words to me that night; that wasn’t the way he operated. He was a man who had a thought and acted on it immediately, as evidenced by his sweet, whispery phone calls right after our dates. He spent no time at all calculating moves; he had better things to do with his time. When we held each other on that chilly spring night and his feelings had come rushing to the surface, he’d felt no need to slap a filter over his mouth. It had come out in a breath: I love you. It was as if he had to say it, in the same way air has to escape a person’s longs. It was involuntary. Necessary. Natural. But as beautiful and warm a moment as it was, I froze on the spot. Once I realized it had been real--that he’d actually said the words--it seemed too late to respond; the window had closed, the shutters had clapped shut. I responded in the only way my cowardice would allow: by holding him tighter, burying my face deeper into his neck, feeling equal parts stupid and awkward. What is your problem? I asked myself. I was in the midst of what was possibly the most romantic, emotionally charged moment of my life, in the embrace of a man who embodied not only everything I’d ever understood about the textbook definition of lust, but everything I’d ever dreamed about in a man. He was a specimen--tall, strong, masculine, quiet. But it was much more than that. He was honest. Real. And affectionate and accessible, quite unlike J and most of the men I’d casually dated since I’d returned home from Los Angeles months earlier. I was in a foreign land. I didn’t know what to do. I love you. He’d said it. And I knew his words had been sincere. I knew, because I felt it, too, even though I couldn’t say it. Marlboro Man continued to hold me tightly on that patio chair, undeterred by my silence, likely resting easily in the knowledge that at least he’d been able to say what he felt. “I’d better go home,” I whispered, suddenly feeling pulled away by some imaginary force. Marlboro Man nodded, helping me to my feet. Holding hands, we walked around his house to my car, where we stopped for a final hug and a kiss or two. Or eight. “Thanks for having me over,” I managed. Man, I was smooth. “Any time,” he replied, locking his arms around my waist during the final kiss. This was the stuff that dreams were made of. I was glad my eyes were closed, because they were rolled all the way into the back of my head. It wouldn’t have been an attractive sight. He opened the door to my car, and I climbed inside. As I backed out of his driveway, he walked toward his front door and turned around, giving me his characteristic wave in his characteristic Wranglers. Driving away, I felt strange, flushed, tingly. Burdened. Confused. Tortured. Thirty minutes into my drive home, he called. I’d almost grown to need it. “Hey,” he said. His voice. Help me. “Oh, hi,” I replied, pretending to be surprised. Even though I wasn’t. “Hey, I…,” Marlboro Man began. “I really don’t want you to go.” I giggled. How cute. “Well…I’m already halfway home!” I replied, a playful lilt to my voice. A long pause followed. Then, his voice serious, he continued, “That’s not what I’m talking about.

I hadn’t noticed, through all my inner torture and turmoil, that Marlboro Man and the horses had been walking closer to me. Before I knew it, Marlboro Man’s right arm was wrapped around my waist while his other hand held the reins of the two horses. In another instant, he pulled me toward him in a tight grip and leaned in for a sweet, tender kiss--a kiss he seemed to savor even after our lips parted. “Good morning,” he said sweetly, grinning that magical grin. My knees went weak. I wasn’t sure if it was the kiss itself…or the dread of riding. We mounted our horses and began walking slowly up the hillside. When we reached the top, Marlboro Man pointed across a vast prairie. “See that thicket of trees over there?” he said. “That’s where we’re headed.” Almost immediately, he gave his horse a kick and began to trot across the flat plain. With no prompting from me at all, my horse followed suit. I braced myself, becoming stiff and rigid and resigning myself to looking like a freak in front of my love and also to at least a week of being too sore to move. I held on to the saddle, the reins, and my life as my horse took off in the same direction as Marlboro Man’s. Not two minutes into our ride, my horse slightly faltered after stepping in a shallow hole. Having no experience with this kind of thing, I reacted, shrieking loudly and pulling wildly on my reins, simultaneously stiffening my body further. The combination didn’t suit my horse, who decided, understandably, that he pretty much didn’t want me on his back anymore. He began to buck, and my life flashed before my eyes--for the first time, I was deathly afraid of horses. I held on for dear life as the huge creature underneath me bounced and reared, but my body caught air, and I knew it was only a matter of time before I’d go flying. In the distance, I heard Marlboro Man’s voice. “Pull up on the reins! Pull up! Pull up!” My body acted immediately--it was used to responding instantly to that voice, after all--and I pulled up tightly on the horse’s reins. This forced its head to an upright position, which made bucking virtually impossible for the horse. Problem was, I pulled up too tightly and quickly, and the horse reared up. I leaned forward and hugged the saddle, praying I wouldn’t fall off backward and sustain a massive head injury. I liked my head. I wasn’t ready to say good-bye to it. By the time the horse’s front legs hit the ground, my left leg was dangling out of its stirrup, even as all my dignity was dangling by a thread. Using my balletic agility, I quickly hopped off the horse, tripping and stumbling away the second my feet hit the ground. Instinctively, I began hurriedly walking away--from the horse, from the ranch, from the burning. I didn’t know where I was going--back to L.A., I figured, or maybe I’d go through with Chicago after all. I didn’t care; I just knew I had to keep walking. In the meantime, Marlboro Man had arrived at the scene and quickly calmed my horse, who by now was eating a leisurely morning snack of dead winter grass that had yet to be burned. The nag. “You okay?” Marlboro Man called out. I didn’t answer. I just kept on walking, determined to get the hell out of Dodge. It took him about five seconds to catch up with me; I wasn’t a very fast walker. “Hey,” he said, grabbing me around the waist and whipping me around so I was facing him. “Aww, it’s okay. It happens.

We kissed again, and I shivered in the cold night air. Wanting to get me out of the cold, he led me to his pickup and opened the door so we could both climb in. The pickup was still warm and toasty, like a campfire was burning in the backseat. I looked at him, giggled like a schoolgirl, and asked, “What have you been doing all this time?” “Oh, I was headed home,” he said, fiddling with my fingers. “But then I just turned around; I couldn’t help it.” His hand found my upper back and pulled me closer. The windows were getting foggy. I felt like I was seventeen. “I’ve got this problem,” he continued, in between kisses. “Yeah?” I asked, playing dumb. My hand rested on his left bicep. My attraction soared to the heavens. He caressed the back of my head, messing up my hair…but I didn’t care; I had other things on my mind. “I’m crazy about you,” he said. By now I was on his lap, right in the front seat of his Diesel Ford F250, making out with him as if I’d just discovered the concept. I had no idea how I’d gotten there--the diesel pickup or his lap. But I was there. And, burying my face in his neck, I quietly repeated his sentiments. “I’m crazy about you, too.” I’d been afflicted with acute boy-craziness for over half my life. But what I was feeling for Marlboro Man was indescribably powerful. It was a primal attraction--the almost uncontrollable urge to wrap my arms and legs around him every time I looked into his eyes. The increased heart rate and respiration every time I heard his voice. The urge to have twelve thousand of his babies…and I wasn’t even sure I wanted children. “So anyway,” he continued. That’s when we heard the loud knocking on the pickup window. I jumped through the roof--it was after 2:00 A.M. Who on earth could it be? The Son of Sam--it had to be! Marlboro Man rolled down the window, and a huge cloud of passion and steam escaped. It wasn’t the Son of Sam. Worse--it was my mother. And she was wearing her heather gray cashmere robe. “Reeee?” she sang. “Is that yoooou?” She leaned closer and peered through the window. I slid off of Marlboro Man’s lap and gave her a halfhearted wave. “Uh…hi, Mom. Yeah. It’s just me.” She laughed. “Oh, okay…whew! I just didn’t know who was out here. I didn’t recognize the car!” She looked at Marlboro Man, whom she’d met only one time before, when he picked me up for a date. “Well, hello again!” she exclaimed, extending her manicured hand. He took her hand and shook it gently. “Hello, ma’am,” he replied, his voice still thick with lust and emotion. I sank in my seat. I was an adult, and had just been caught parking at 2:00 A.M. in the driveway of my parents’ house by my robe-wearing mother. She’d seen the foggy windows. She’d seen me sitting on his lap. I felt like I’d just gotten grounded. “Well, okay, then,” my mom said, turning around. “Good night, you two!” And with that, she flitted back into the house. Marlboro Man and I looked at each other. I hid my face in my hands and shook my head. He chuckled, opened the door, and said, “C’mon…I’d better get you home before curfew.” My sweaty hands still hid my face. He walked me to the door, and we stood on the top step. Wrapping his arms around my waist, he kissed me on the nose and said, “I’m glad I came back.” God, he was sweet. “I’m glad you did, too,” I replied. “But…” I paused for a moment, gathering courage. “Did you have something you wanted to say?” It was forward, yes--gutsy. But I wasn’t going to let this moment pass. I didn’t have many more moments with him, after all; soon I’d be gone to Chicago. Sitting in coffee shops at eleven at night, if I wanted. Working. Eventually going back to school. I’d be danged if I was going to miss what he’d started to say a few minutes earlier, before my mom and her cashmere robe showed up and spoiled everything.

A tractor beam from the Imperial ship locked onto the shuttle and in seconds it became apparent they were being hauled in. The tractor was inescapable, and they knew it. The shuttle’s small yet potent engines struggled vainly against the irresistible pull. Inside, the Hammer and his men prepared to meet their fate.

Think of the Omega Point as a star radiating energy, a transcendental attractor, a divine 'tractor beam' - things are not being pushed from behind on the evolutionary timeline but being pulled toward the Omega Singularity, a point of maximum complexity and connectivity.

I closed my eyes, laid my head back on the pillow, and savored my first moments alone with my child. Seconds later, the door to my room opened and my brother-in-law, Tim, walked in. He’d just finished working a huge load of cattle. Marlboro Man would have been, too, if I hadn’t gone into labor the night before. “Hey!” Tim said enthusiastically. “How’s it going?” I yanked the bedsheet far enough north to cover the baby’s head and my exposed breast; as much as I loved my new brother-in-law, I just couldn’t see myself being that open with him. He caught on immediately. “Oops--did I come at a bad time?” Tim asked, a deer caught in the headlights. “You just missed your brother,” I said. The baby’s lips fell off my nipple and she rooted around and tried to find it again. I tried to act like nothing was happening under the covers. “No kidding?” Tim asked, looking nervously around the room. “Oh, I should have called first.” “Come on in,” I said, sitting up in the bed as tall as I could. The epidural had definitely worn off. My bottom was beginning to throb. “How’s the baby?” he asked, wanting to look but unsure if he should look in her direction. “She’s great,” I answered, pulling the little one out from under the covers. I prayed I could get my nipple quickly tucked away without incident. Tim smiled as he regarded his new niece. “She’s so cute,” he said tenderly. “Can I hold her?” He reached out his arms like a child wanting to hold a puppy. “Sure,” I said, handing her over, my bottom stinging by now. All I could think about was getting in the shower and spraying it with the nozzle I’d noticed earlier in the day when the nurse escorted me to the bathroom. I’d started obsessing over it, in fact. The nozzle was all I could think about. Tim seemed as surprised at the baby’s gender as his brother had been. “I was shocked when I heard!” he said, looking at me with a smile. I laughed, imagining what Marlboro Man’s dad might be thinking. That the first grandchild in such a male-dominated ranching family turned out to be a girl was becoming more humorous to me each minute. This was going to be an adventure.

More and more, I began helping around the homestead. I learned to operate my John Deere mower so I could keep the yard around our house--and our half-remodeled, boarded-up yellow brick house--neatly trimmed. Marlboro Man was working like a dog in the Oklahoma summer, and I wanted to make our homestead a haven for him. The heat was so stifling, though, all I could stand to wear was a loose-fitting maternity tank top and a pair of Marlboro Man’s white Jockey boxers, which I gracefully pulled down below my enormous belly. As I rode on the bouncy green mower in my heavily pregnant state, my mind couldn’t help but travel back to the long country drive I’d taken when I was engaged to Marlboro Man, when we’d stumbled upon the old homestead and found the half-naked woman mowing her yard. And here I was: I had become that woman. And it had happened in less than a year. I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection of our bedroom window and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The Playtex bra was all I was missing.

A week before my due date, Marlboro Man had to preg-test a hundred cows. Preg-testing cows, I would learn in horror that warm June morning, does not involve the cow urinating on a test stick and waiting at least three minutes to read the result. Instead, a large animal vet inserts his entire arm into a long disposable glove, then inserts the gloved arm high into the rectum of a pregnant cow until the vet’s arm is no longer visible. Once his arm is deep inside the cow’s nether regions, the vet can feel the size and angle of the cow’s cervix and determine two things: 1. Whether or not she is pregnant. 2. How far along she is. With this information, Marlboro Man decides whether to rebreed the nonpregnant cows, and in which pasture to place the pregnant cows; cows that became bred at the same time will stay in the same pasture so that they’ll all give birth in approximately the same time frame. Of course, I understood none of this as I watched the doctor insert the entire length of his arm into a hundred different cows’ bottoms. All I knew is that he’d insert his arm, the cow would moo, he would pull out his arm, and the cow would poop. Unintentionally, each time a new cow would pass through the chute, I’d instinctively bear down. I was just as pregnant as many of the cows. My nether regions were uncomfortable enough as it was. The thought of someone inserting their… It was more than I probably should have signed up for that morning. “God help me!” I yelped as Marlboro Man and I pulled away from the working area after the last cow was tested. “What in the name of all that is holy did I just witness?” “How’d you like that?” Marlboro Man asked, smiling a satisfied smile. He loved introducing me to new ranching activities. The more shocking I found them, the better. “Seriously,” I mumbled, grasping my enormous belly as if to protect my baby from the reality of this bizarre, disturbing world. “That was just…that was like nothing I’ve ever seen before!” It made the rectal thermometer episode I’d endured many months earlier seem like a garden party. Marlboro Man laughed and rested his hand on my knee. It stayed there the rest of the drive home. At eleven that night, I woke up feeling strange. Marlboro Man and I had just drifted off to sleep, and my abdomen felt tight and weird. I stared at the ceiling, breathing deeply in an effort to will it away. But then I put two and two together: the whole trauma of what I’d seen earlier in the day must have finally caught up with me. In my sympathy for the preg-tested cows, I must have borne down a few too many times. I sat up in bed. I was definitely in labor.

Unintentionally, each time a new cow would pass through the chute, I’d instinctively bear down. I was just as pregnant as many of the cows. My nether regions were uncomfortable enough as it was. The thought of someone inserting their… It was more than I probably should have signed up for that morning. “God help me!” I yelped as Marlboro Man and I pulled away from the working area after the last cow was tested. “What in the name of all that is holy did I just witness?” “How’d you like that?” Marlboro Man asked, smiling a satisfied smile. He loved introducing me to new ranching activities. The more shocking I found them, the better. “Seriously,” I mumbled, grasping my enormous belly as if to protect my baby from the reality of this bizarre, disturbing world. “That was just…that was like nothing I’ve ever seen before!” It made the rectal thermometer episode I’d endured many months earlier seem like a garden party. Marlboro Man laughed and rested his hand on my knee. It stayed there the rest of the drive home.

An hour later we were pulling into the hospital parking lot. Sparkly and shiny from my hair and makeup job, I had to stop and bend over six times between the car and the front door of the hospital. I literally couldn’t take a step until each contraction ended. Within an hour after checking in, I was writhing on a hospital bed in all-encompassing pain and wishing once again that I’d gone ahead and moved to Chicago. It had become my default response when things got rough in my life: morning sickness? I should have moved to Chicago. Cow manure in my yard? Chicago would have been a better choice. Contractions less than a minute apart? Windy City, come and get me. Finally, I reached my breaking point. It’s an indescribable feeling, the throes of hard labor--that mind-numbing total body cramp whose origin you can’t even begin to wrap your head around. After trying to be strong and tough in front of Marlboro Man, I finally gave up and gripped the bedsheet and clenched my teeth. I groaned and moaned and pushed the nurse button and whimpered to Marlboro Man, “I can’t do this anymore.” When the nurse came into the room moments later, I begged her to put me out of my misery. My salvation arrived five minutes later in the form of an eight-inch needle, and when the medicine hit I nearly began to cry. The relief was indescribably sweet. I was so blissfully pain-free, I fell asleep. And when I woke up confused and disoriented an hour later, a nurse named Heidi was telling me it was time to push. Almost immediately, Dr. Oliver entered the room, fully scrubbed and wearing a mask. “Are you ready, Mama?” Marlboro Man asked, standing near my shoulders as the nurse draped my legs and adjusted the fetal monitor, which was strapped around my middle. I felt like I’d woken up in the middle of a party. But the weirdest party ever--one where the hostess was putting my feet in stirrups. I ordered Marlboro Man to remain north of my belly button as nurses scurried into place. I’d made it clear beforehand: I didn’t want him down there. I wanted him to continue to get to know me the old-fashioned way--and besides, that’s what we were paying the doctor for. “Go ahead and push once for me,” Dr. Oliver said. I did, but only hard enough to ensure that nothing accidental or embarrassing would slip out. I could think of no greater humiliation. “Okay, that’s not going to work at all,” Dr. Oliver scolded. I pushed again. “Ree,” Dr. Oliver said, looking up at me through the space between my legs. “You can do way better than that.” He’d watched me grow up in the ballet company in our town. He’d watched me contort and leap and spin in everything from The Nutcracker to Swan Lake to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He knew I had the fortitude to will a baby from my loins. That’s when Marlboro Man grabbed my hand, as if to impart to me, his sweaty and slightly weary wife, a measure of his strength and endurance. “Come on, honey,” he said. “You can do it.” A few tense moments later, our baby was born. Except it wasn’t a baby boy. It was a seven-pound, twenty-one-inch baby girl. It was the most important moment of my life. And more ways than one, it was a pivotal moment for Marlboro Man.

An hour later we were pulling into the hospital parking lot. Sparkly and shiny from my hair and makeup job, I had to stop and bend over six times between the car and the front door of the hospital. I literally couldn’t take a step until each contraction ended. Within an hour after checking in, I was writhing on a hospital bed in all-encompassing pain and wishing once again that I’d gone ahead and moved to Chicago. It had become my default response when things got rough in my life: morning sickness? I should have moved to Chicago. Cow manure in my yard? Chicago would have been a better choice. Contractions less than a minute apart? Windy City, come and get me.

As much as Milly loved seeing Asa on that tractor, a part of her dreaded the days he came to mow, not only because her father made her go out to him with cookies and lemonade and watched her closely the entire time, but also because on those nights, Bett and Twiss would trick her into talking about Asa, and Milly would fall for their tricks. Milly understood Twiss's reasons for teasing her- Twiss didn't want to lose her- but she never understood Bett's. Bett would start innocently enough. "I heard Milly was talking to someone in the meadow the other day. I heard she baked him a red velvet cake shaped like a heart." "I heard she did more than that," Twiss would say. "With Mr. Peterson." "She likes them old, yep, she does." "Wrinkly," Bett would say. "Hairy." "Pruney!" When Milly could no longer stand the teasing, she'd pull her blanket over her head and say, "It wasn't Mr. Peterson I was talking to, it was Asa! And it wasn't red velvet cake, it was butter cookies! They weren't shaped like hearts, either!" And then the laughter would come, and Milly would know she'd been fooled into giving up another part of herself that she preferred to keep secret. The night she first told them about how much she admired Asa's work ethic (when she really just meant him), Bett and Twiss had made fun of her, and of Asa's slight stutter. "M-M-May I eat one of your cookies?" "Y-Y-Yes, you may." "M-M-May I love you like coconut flakes?" "L-L-Love me like coconut flakes, you may." They laughed when they said the word "love," but that was the word Milly had begun to think about- the possibility of it- whenever she was with Asa and, even more often, when she was without him. The word was with her when she pinned clothes to the line, or scrubbed the linoleum, or baked a pie. Sometimes, when no one was looking, she'd trace an A into a well of flour or hold a mop as though she were holding Asa's hand.

People driving down the New Jersey Turnpike through the flat, gray wetlands just south of New York City would never notice the unmarked semi-tractor trailers pulling onto the turnpike at exit 16W, coming from the operations center just down the street. But the East Rutherford Operations Center is hiding riches beyond imagining. Deep inside the complex sits a gargantuan vault, measuring 1 million cubic feet. It is filled with U.S. currency, capable of holding as much as $60 billion. And those trucks driving onto the turnpike are loaded with secret cargo—cash.

She took me to the pasture and let me milk a mammoth brown cow. She taught me how to drive a tractor. We rode horses through the woods. We smoked weed on the roof and pointed out clouds that looked like penises. We fed tiny chunks of raw chicken to her brother’s Venus flytrap. We fucked each other with fresh-picked ears of corn. We built a fire under a billion stars and told ghost stories. We took bets to see how many cigarette butts the rooster would eat. We let the goats hop on top of our backs and nibble our hair. We built an altar of stones, sticks and berries at the top of a hill, and when we hummed a family of deer came to us, licking our palms and nuzzling our cheeks. We bathed in streams and made bread from scratch. We pulled ticks and leeches off each other’s backs. We wrote rap songs about farm life and smoking meth. We stayed up a whole night watching movies about vampires and warlocks. We left clumps of hair, string and silver buttons for a family of crows. When it stormed for three days and we lost power, I rocked her gently in the dark and told her I loved her.

And farmers, those whose lives are connected to the lake yet uninterested in it, sit atop green or red tractors beneath dusty brimmed hats, roll cigarettes, and pull at the earth for one more year like a pig suckling the hind teat.

Corey--who’d been walking ahead with Sam--let out a whistle. He gestured to a tractor trailer, pulling out of what looked like a parking lot. We jogged up to Corey and Sam. “Please don’t be closed for the season,” Corey murmured as we picked up speed. “Please don’t be staffed by witches and demons, lying in wait for us. Please, please, please, just give us a break.” As we approached, we saw the sign. REDWOOD MOTEL AND RESTAURANT. There were three vehicles in the lot--two cars off to the far side and a pickup with a topper in front of the restaurant doors. “This is good,” Corey said. “Tell me this is good.” “People. Phones. Food.” I grinned over at him. “Yep, this is good.” Daniel caught Corey’s arm. “We should let the girls handle this.” “Huh?” Corey said. “We just need to make a phone call, right? Hell, I’ll give them my other twenty to cover it.” “I just…I think we should hang back. We’re in rough shape. That guy with the van was worried about me, not Maya.” Corey sighed. “Fine. For once, you’ve earned the right to paranoia. Go get ’em, girls.” He passed me the twenty. “Just in case.

Corey--who’d been walking ahead with Sam--let out a whistle. He gestured to a tractor trailer, pulling out of what looked like a parking lot. We jogged up to Corey and Sam. “Please don’t be closed for the season,” Corey murmured as we picked up speed. “Please don’t be staffed by witches and demons, lying in wait for us. Please, please, please, just give us a break.

Mother’s yellow station wagon slid like a Monopoly icon along the gray road that cut between fields of Iowa corn, which was chlorophyll green and punctuated in the distance by gargantuan silver silos and gleaming, unrusted tractors glazed cinnamon red. Mother told me how the wealth of these farmers differed from the plight of the West Texas dirt farmers of her Dust Bowl youth, who doled out mortgaged seed from croker sacks. But because I was seventeen and had bitten my cuticles raw facing the prospect of fitting in at the private college we’d reach that night—which had accepted me through some mixture of pity and oversight—and because I was split-headed with the hangover Mother and I had incurred the night before, sucking down screwdrivers in the unaptly named Holiday Inn in Kansas City, I told Mother something like, Enough already about your shitty youth. You’ve told me about eight million times since we pulled out of the garage.

The country will starve, not next year, but this winter, unless a few of us act and act fast. There are no grain reserves left anywhere. With Nebraska gone, Oklahoma wrecked, North Dakota abandoned, Kansas barely subsisting—there isn’t going to be any wheat this winter, not for the city of New York nor for any Eastern city. Minnesota is our last granary. They’ve had two bad years in succession, but they have a bumper crop this fall—and they have to be able to harvest it. Have you had a chance to take a look at the condition of the farm-equipment industry? They’re not big enough, any of them, to keep a staff of efficient gangsters in Washington or to pay percentages to pull-peddlers. So they haven’t been getting many allocations of materials. Two-thirds of them have shut down and the rest are about to. And farms are perishing all over the country—for lack of tools. You should have seen those farmers in Minnesota. They’ve been spending more time fixing old tractors that can’t be fixed than plowing their fields. I don’t know how they managed to survive till last spring. I don’t know how they managed to plant their wheat. But they did. They did.” There was a look of intensity on his face, as if he were contemplating a rare, forgotten sight: a vision of men—and she knew what motive was still holding him to his job. “Dagny, they had to have tools for their harvest. I’ve been selling all the Metal I could steal out of my own mills to the manufacturers of farm equipment. On credit. They’ve been sending the equipment to Minnesota as fast as they could put it out. Selling it in the same way—illegally and on credit. But they will be paid, this fall, and so will I. Charity, hell! We’re helping producers—and what tenacious producers!—not lousy, mooching ‘consumers.’ We’re giving loans, not alms. We’re supporting ability, not need. I’ll be damned if I’ll stand by and let those men be destroyed while the pull-peddlers grow rich!” He

The country will starve, not next year, but this winter, unless a few of us act and act fast. There are no grain reserves left anywhere. With Nebraska gone, Oklahoma wrecked, North Dakota abandoned, Kansas barely subsisting—there isn’t going to be any wheat this winter, not for the city of New York nor for any Eastern city. Minnesota is our last granary. They’ve had two bad years in succession, but they have a bumper crop this fall—and they have to be able to harvest it. Have you had a chance to take a look at the condition of the farm-equipment industry? They’re not big enough, any of them, to keep a staff of efficient gangsters in Washington or to pay percentages to pull-peddlers. So they haven’t been getting many allocations of materials. Two-thirds of them have shut down and the rest are about to. And farms are perishing all over the country—for lack of tools. You should have seen those farmers in Minnesota. They’ve been spending more time fixing old tractors that can’t be fixed than plowing their fields. I don’t know how they managed to survive till last spring. I don’t know how they managed to plant their wheat. But they did. They did.” There was a look of intensity on his face, as if he were contemplating a rare, forgotten sight: a vision of men—and she knew what motive was still holding him to his job. “Dagny, they had to have tools for their harvest. I’ve been selling all the Metal I could steal out of my own mills to the manufacturers of farm equipment. On credit. They’ve been sending the equipment to Minnesota as fast as they could put it out. Selling it in the same way—illegally and on credit. But they will be paid, this fall, and so will I. Charity, hell! We’re helping producers—and what tenacious producers!—not lousy, mooching ‘consumers.’ We’re giving loans, not alms. We’re supporting ability, not need. I’ll be damned if I’ll stand by and let those men be destroyed while the pull-peddlers grow rich!

I figured he’d gotten caught up in the same traffic jam we had, which in Ponchatoula meant that we got stuck behind one tractor while there was another tractor coming in the other lane and the two streams of cars and trucks behind the tractors couldn’t figure out who had the right of way to pass on a blind curve, so we all just kinda poked along for about fifteen minutes until the tractors and all the lines of cars got past one another and we could move on about our lives. The part of that shit I never understand is why the old fart on the tractor don’t just pull off and drive on the shoulder for a minute. I mean, it’s a tractor, fo god’s sake—it’s designed to drive through grass and dirt. Ain’t like riding on the shoulder of the highway is gonna screw up its suspension.

One of the swings went over the fence that separated the arena from the fair.  It crashed into the back of a grandstand.  The commotion on the grandstand was a horrid spectacle.  Once packed with fans of the truck and tractor pull going on, they were now stampeding for the exits,

A lone spider crawled over the tops of the blades of grass and chose the unfortunate direction of the base of the fire. Felt the heat and scuttled under the drying nose of the heifer in another poor decision, another set of carbon parts to crinkle and collapse under the heat. Like the snakes that propelled themselves through the wheat only to fall under tractor blades, and the insects that chopped across stems like calcium machines, and the worms that hooked and churned and overturned again and again in bovine guts, over and over and dead dead dead. A land that was built to consume them and to consume their descendants over and over once again. To consume him, and he pulled his hand away from the wild oat strands he held as if they were hot and then sunk his hands back in.