nextNo BrainsDoq stepped back from the pole and said, "He looks just like you, kid." Bucky smiled at his father, then at his new scarecrow. "He looks like me?" Doq laughed and said, "Dead ringer. Look at that goofy smile. That's you all over." "He's wearing your clothes," Bucky pointed out. "He's a grownup. I'm only nine." "I'm not talking about the clothes, dummy. I'm talking about the face. You think that thing's going to scare any crows away?" Doq slapped his son gently on the back of the head. "Right. 'Look at the moron,' they'll say. 'Free lunch!'" Bucky giggled. "You think that's funny?" Doq asked. "Huh?" "No." "So how come you laughed?" "I don't know," Bucky said, smiling. "What's a scarecrow supposed to do?" Doq asked him. "Think, now." Bucky rubbed the back of his head. "Scare crows?" "My son the genius. So why did you paint a big smile on this scarecrow's face? What's scary about that?" "I don't know," Bucky said. "You know the reason your scarecrow wears a big goofy grin, Bucky? Huh? Same reason you do. Why's that?" Bucky scratched his head again. "So kids won't hit him?" he asked. Doq shook his head. He fished a crowbar out of his wheelbarrow and wound up and slammed it against the scarecrows chest. "Not hardly," he said. "Come on, kid, let's go. We have a barn roof to patch." He tossed the crowbar back into the wheelbarrow. "How come, Dad?" "So the rain don't get in, dummy. Storm's coming." "How come the scarecrow smiles?" Doq ruffled his son's hair. "No brains," he said. "Let's go." ...
"Bucky, get back from the edge. You're going to fall and break your neck." "No I won't," Bucky said. "I'm careful." He threw a nail down into a bucket on the ground, fifteen feet below. Ping. Straddling the rooftop, his father shouted down at him, "You do what I say, boy. Now." "Okay," Bucky said. He skooched backward up the slant of the roof. "Now I can't see the bucket." "What bucket?" Doq asked, his mouth full of nails. He hammered another shingle in place and said, "What the hell are you talking about?" "The bucket on the ground," Bucky answered. "I can't see it any more, sitting way up here like this." Doq shook his head and fished another nail out of his mouth. "So?" "So I'll miss. Look." Bucky took a nail out of his blue overall pocket and tossed it over the side of the roof. No ping. Doq carefully removed the nails from his mouth and put them into his blue workshirt pocket. He holstered his hammer in his toolbelt and said, "You little idiot, are you throwing those nails away?" "No," Bucky said. He looked over his shoulder and smiled at his father. "What do you mean 'no'? Didn't I just see you throw a nail away? Huh?" "I couldn't see the bucket," Bucky explained. "All the others went in the bucket. I didn't throw them away. I threw them in the bucket, Dad." He smiled. "Come up here." Bucky turned over on his hands and knees and climbed up to the top and straddled the roof facing his father. He smiled. "Give me the rest of them nails," Doq said. Bucky fished in his overall pocket and pulled out the nails. Four of them. "Give me the rest." "That's all." "Where are the rest?" "In the bucket." Doq slapped the boy's thigh. "You mean to tell me you threw all those nails off the roof? Huh?" Bucky shrugged. "Why did I bring you with me? Think." "To put up the scarecrow in the cornfield." "Shit. Think again. We're on the roof now. Why are you up here on the roof? What did I tell you?" Bucky rubbed his thigh. "To carry the nails?" "Bingo! The kid gets one right! Give this kid a hand!" Doq slapped Bucky's other thigh. "Now. Why do I want the nails?" Bucky rubbed both of his thighs. He smiled at his father. "Why, Bucky?" "To fix the roof! Fix the barn roof." "No, stupid. So you could sit on the edge and throw them all off the roof and then fall off the roof and break your neck. Right?" "No." "Right?" "I guess so." "Wrong. Go down the ladder and bring me my nails." "Okay, Dad." Bucky swung his leg over the top and skooched down to where the ladder rested against the gutter. He looked up at his father. "What are you waiting for?" Doq asked. "You got to hold the ladder for me," Bucky said. "The hell I do," Doq answered. "Just be careful and you'll be fine." Bucky said, "I'll fall and break my neck." "Bucky, get your ass down that ladder like I told you and bring me my god damn nails. Move it!" Bucky kicked the ladder. He kicked it again, and it wobbled. "It wobbles," he told his father. "It won't wobble when you're on it. It's fine. It's safe. Go on." Bucky kicked the ladder one more time, and it moved away from him, slid along the gutter, and rattled off the roof and fell to the ground and bounced once. It knocked over the bucket of nails. "You damn fool!" Bucky looked up at his father and said, "Now what do I do?" "Looks like you're going to have to jump, kid. Either that or take the elevator. Or call a taxi. What's so funny?" "Call a taxi!" Bucky shouted. "Go on, now. Jump down there and put the ladder back up." "No way!" Bucky said, smiling. "Wipe that grin off your face and jump. What are you scared of?" "I'll break my neck, you said." "That's only if you fall, stupid. If you jump you'll be fine. When I was a kid I used to jump off the barn roof all the time. It's fun. Go on, now. Before it starts raining. See those clouds? We got to get this roof patched before it starts raining. Jump." "I don't want to, Dad. You do it." "Bucky, don't make me come down there and push you off the roof." Bucky scooted along the edge. "Where are you going?" his father asked. "Over here where I won't land on the ladder." "That's being smart," Doq said. "For a change." Bucky hovered on the edge, rubbing his thighs. The ground below him was bare dirt, with gopher holes and little stones. "What are you waiting for?" He jumped. His legs buckled when he hit the ground, and he fell forward onto his knees; his hands got scraped on the dirt, and he fell forward onto his chest and his cheek hit a rock. The wind was knocked from his body. His father called down, "You okay?" He rose to his hands and knees, struggling for breath. "You okay, I said." Bucky rose to his feet and wiped his face. Breath wheezed back into his lungs, and he yelled, "Ow!" He looked up at his father. "You're okay," Doq said. He was hunkering near the gutter, grinning. "You must have landed on your head. Okay, hand me the ladder." Bucky walked over to the wheelbarrow and fished out the crowbar. Carrying the crowbar with both hands, he walked away from the barn, toward the cornfield. "Hey!" Doq called. "Hey! Get back here! Where the hell you going? Get back here! I said get back here! Bucky? Bucky! Boq!" Later that afternoon, when the storm arrived, Bucky was still in the middle of the cornfield, banging on his scarecrow with his father's crowbar. The scarecrow's blue clothing, which Doq had worn thin over the years of farming, was now torn, and his body was battered and bent out of shape, but he smiled on, smiled on. "That doesn't hurt, does it?" Bucky yelled at the scarecrow. "You can't even feel that, you little idiot!" He did a backhand swipe with the crowbar, catching a blue button in the iron claw and flinging it into the field. Bucky's arms were aching now, and tears and sweat were stinging the scrape on his face, but he hammered on and on, pounding the scarecrow that had taken him hours to make. "What the hell are you grinning about?" Bucky shouted. "You are so stupid!" Using both hands, he smashed the crowbar against the scarecrow's thighs; first one, then the other. "No brains! No brains!" Finally the rain poured over him, cooled him down, drenched his clothes, washed the tears and blood from his face, and made the crowbar too slippery to swing. Bucky dropped the crowbar and walked away from the scarecrow, into the rain, across the muddy field, toward home. ...
The scarecrow's body was bent and torn. His eyes were round and wide. His face grinned into the sun. He had no brains. next |