Life Without Harlan...

A slight breeze puffed the eyelet curtains as Cassie Truestock cranked open the cracked window above the kitchen sink. It had rained earlier, just enough to wash the dust from the broken-down John Deere tractor abandoned out by the round red barn. A scruffy, colorless chicken scurried through the side yard looking for adventure; a speeding, multi-colored rooster followed inches from her tail feathers, intent on helping her find it.
"Harlan, the coop door's open again. You promised to get that latch fixed three weeks ago," Cassie called in the direction of the sitting room, as she placed the crusty roasting pan in the warm sudsy water, and pushed on it until it sank below the surface of the bubbles.
"The corn is as high as an elephant's eye," she sang absently in her quivery soprano as she looked through the ragged screen at the July corn.
Cassandra Miller Truestock had endured thirty years on this southern Indiana hog farm, all of them spent married to Harlan Truestock. She knew her husband like a dog-eared paperback, and waited for the usual grunts, groans, or drunken curse words.
"Harlan?" Cassie attacked the roasting pan with an over-the-hill scouring pad while she waited for a response.
When Great-Granddaddy Miller built the farmhouse back in 1907, it was the showplace of West Galina with its gables, shutters, and gingerbread; it gleamed like a jewel in the Indiana sun with its fresh coat of white paint. He built a round barn and painted it bright red; consequently, the unusual building became a landmark for all who traveled the dusty roads around the area: "Turn left at the round red barn." "When you get to the round red barn, you're there."  "Look to the West when you pass the red barn--the round one--and we're the next farm down."
Cassie had been elated when her father gifted the house to her as a wedding present. The 'gift' did not include the land or the out-buildings, a point lost on Cassie at the time; a point that would drag the farm and the marriage into disrepair.
"He's hogtied me, Cassie, and he knows damn well he has!" Harlan had whispered into his bride's ear as they sat at the head table at the West Galena VFW Hall.
"Daddy wouldn't do that," the new bride had whispered back as she stabbed a Swedish meatball with a white plastic fork." We own the house, free and clear, sweetie."
"You do."
"Whatever is mine is yours, you know that."
"I'll be a like a damn slave, workin' someone else's land for the rest of my natural life!"
And, that's when the trouble had started, right then and there. Cheap lager, Harlan's choice of numbing agent, began flowing into the Truestock household like a raging river.
"Harlan, are you awake?"
Harlan had consumed two huge servings of Cassie's famous Yankee Pot Roast for supper, and had topped off the meal with a huge slice of homemade apple pie. Of course, he hadn't waved her away when she plopped a giant scoop of homemade ice cream next to the cooling crust.  After the meal, he had let out a loud belch, grabbed a quart bottle of lager from the fridge, and wandered off toward the sitting room, without so much as a word of thanks. The over-stuffed man was more than likely passed out in his corduroy Lazy Boy recliner, while reruns of the Andy Griffith Show flashed across the screen, unwatched.
A big black horsefly grabbed a free ride into the kitchen on a breeze, and tried to use the wrinkle on Cassie's weathered cheek as a landing strip. She brushed the fly away, and it flew back out through the decaying screen into the gathering dusk.
"Harlan?" she called again. "Is old man Tinker coming over to fix this screen? The flies are as thick as molasses in January. A horsefly as big as a Buick raced in just now, and tried to park on my cheek!"
She glanced out at the new batch of piglets in the hog yard, shook her head and sighed. Cassie was afraid of hogs, and Harlan knew it.  An angry sow had nipped her when she was eight years old, and she still carried the scar on her right wrist as a constant reminder.
"I hate flies! I HATE HOGS!" she blurted, then quickly clamped her hand over her loose lips. She squeezed her eyes shut and waited for Harlan and his fists to come flying into the kitchen, responding to this uncharacteristic outburst. Cassie had learned to stifle her real feelings thirty years earlier.
"How many pigs are there?" she had asked in a level tone, hiding her panic, as the squealing piglets poured from the delivery truck that very first time.
"Two hundred--give or take. Why?" Harlan waited, his smirk intact.
"Just wondering," she fibbed, her arm still aching from Harlan's retaliation on their wedding night when she dared speak her mind about her new husband's violent sexual advances.
"That's what I thought." He spit his tobacco juice near Cassie's left foot and walked off toward the hog yard.
That first batch of feeder pigs grew into two hundred pound versions of themselves, went to market, and were replaced by two hundred more piglets, many times over, in the span of thirty years, paralleling Harlan's abusive behavior.
Cassie breathed a sigh when no fists came flying her way.  She looked around the room as she wiped the well-worn roasting pan with a red checkered terry towel. Things were pretty much the same in the spacious farm kitchen as they had been on day one: the same pots and pans hung from the vintage pot rack, the same red Formica-topped kitchen set occupied the center of the room, and the same white eyelet curtains (that Cassie washed, bleached and starched every other month) hung in the kitchen window.
Although the room's décor hadn't changed, the list of people who had populated it had become considerably shorter as the years dragged on. The Truestock's four sons were all grown up and gone, having fled to the big city at the first opportunity, and they rarely visited. Harlan's parents had passed on, not that they had ever been around much while they were alive; and Cassie's folks, now in their seventies, rarely drove in from town, and then, only when their son-in-law wasn't home. So, it was just she and Harlan sitting across from each other at the kitchen table, eating their meals in silence.
As Cassie rubbed udder cream into the cavernous cracks on her work-worn hands, she looked out toward the battered '73 Chevy pickup with the faded Harlan Truestock Farm sign on the driver's side door; her eyes misted up. The maternal part of her had always prayed Harlan Jr., Roger, Floyd and little Dickie would embrace the farm and move back home; she had dreamed of the day when there would be a shiny new truck (with Truestock & Sons Farms painted on the side panels) parked in the gravel driveway.
She slipped the thin gold band onto her well-greased finger.
"Harlan Truestock, have you heard a word I've said?" She continued boldly, knowing Harlan was probably dead to the world, if he hadn't responded by now. "I'd be better off alone, stranded out here. That way, I could at least hire a reliable handyman to fix this screen, paint the house, fix the chicken coop door, and the barn door hinge!"
She took off the stained apron and threw it over the back of the kitchen chair.
"And, whatever else needs doing around here, Harlan! Old man Tinker is drunk more than he's sober!" she said as she hung up the damp towel over the oven door handle to dry. "I don't know why you deal with him. Cheap isn't always better!"
She closed the window, beheading a horse fly with the "whoosh" of the guillotine, as the framed pane slammed into place. "First thing, I'd get rid of the damn hogs!"

"Harlan?"
She listened as she stood in the kitchen doorway, her hand on the light switch. The only thing she heard was the drone of Barney Fife's voice complaining to Aunt Bea about something Opie had done. Harlan should have answered by now, or at least grunted or groaned. He hadn't had that much to drink or eat.
Life without Harlan...
She had pondered the possibility every time life got unbearable: whenever the lager took over and brought the physical abuse with it; whenever Harlan unleashed his power over her while she submitted silently in the semen-drenched sheets, trapped under his violent release.
Life without Harlan...
Oh, yes, she had thought about it before. If Harlan were gone, she would call the boys and tell them they could come home. She would be happy living in the guest room. Everything would be fine, if her sons would just come home.
Life without Harlan...
Yes, she had thought about it many times. Slipping off her wedding band, she dropped it into the pocket of her gingham house dress. She switched off the kitchen light, and made her way through the passageway to the dining room.
"Harlan?" she called, as she continued through the dining room, the old pine floorboards creaking under her bulk.
From the other end of the sitting room, Cassie could see the back of Harlan's balding head peeking up over the edge of the recliner. The light coming from the television screen flashed, and bounced off the rosebud wallpaper wall, creating an eerie backdrop to the drama that was unfolding. She continued tiptoeing toward her motionless husband.
Why am I tiptoeing if he's dead?
She was almost giddy as she continued on toward the immobile man, mentally planning her new life with each step.

"Yoo hoo!"
Life without Harlan...
She would go through the motions of checking his pulse; she would call the paramedics; and then she would call the boys. She began planning the supper she would serve her sons on that homecoming night: her famous pot roast and the baby red potatoes with parsley that Roger loved so much; and she would bake that peach pie little Dickie was so fond of.
When she reached the back of the chair, she called out one last time. "Harlan?"
"What?" she heard her dead husband answer. "What in the hell do you want?"
Caught off guard, the shocked woman jumped back, unable to utter a sound.
Harlan Truestock sat up and swiveled in his chair, facing his wife. "You wake me from a sound sleep and then you stand there like Helen Keller!"
"I just wondered if you were okay," she said as she forced a smile. "You were so quiet."
"I'm just peachy keen. Never been better." He took a swig from the quart bottle, then licked his lips. "Anything else on your mind, honey?"
"No," Cassie said a bit too quickly.
"We'll see. The night's still young," Harlan said, then swiveled back around to face the TV screen.
Cassie shifted on her slippers, turned her back on Barney Fife and Harlan, and quickly padded toward the stairs.
When she reached the second story landing, she could hear Andy giving one last bit of fatherly advice to Opie as the rerun drew to a close. Twisting the imaginary gold band, Harlan's long-suffering wife made her way up the stairs to the Truestock's marital bed.
A few minutes later, she heard the sudden silence coming from the sitting room just as she closed the nightstand drawer.
Cassie crawled between the icy sheets to wait, as she pulled the Eiderdown comforter up to her chin. 

When she heard the stairs creak, she sat up--projecting what would happen next. She saw the door knob turn, picked up the Smith and Wesson and cocked it.
Harlan had decided to call it a night. Cassie decided to help him.