yevlax

My First Girlfriend

My father was a cattle farmer, so both before and after my parents divorce, I spent a lot of weekends being let loose to run about at a stockyard. The purpose was get out of my fathers' hair while he was wheeling and dealing in bovine futures.

These trips would follow a pattern every weekend. My father would come over to the house, exchange a few tense pleasantries with my mother, then scoop me into the truck for a ride out into the country roads of Kentucky. I don't have very good directional sense as an adult, but as a kid I think it was even worse, because I never did decipher which path of back roads and ten-person towns led to which stockyard. Once we arrived, my father would give me a small allowance for food during the day, and I'd wander out into the surrounding area to explore.

I remember going out onto the rickety walkways that were built high up in the air above the cowpens, so the farmers could look down below to figure out future purchases. I felt like Spider-man, climbing too and fro, sometimes even daring to leap across a small break in the web. There weren't any skyscrapers in Edmonson Co., KY, so an adventurous kid had to make do, ya know?

I remember going outside, where all the trucks were usually parked in a line, tailgates sometimes open. On these open tailgates rested old men with bundles of sticks. They were carvers, spending the day exchanging news and gossip, and carving out canes to sell. I'd buy one from them now if I could.

I remember sometimes sneaking up to the rafters of the building, and hiding out. The rafters were forbidden to me, because it was above the weak ceiling and I could get hurt. I liked being up there because it was so different from the rest of the building. It was clean and smelled like sweet chemicals instead of like gritty cowshit covered in flies. It was covered in long rows of pink insulation, that make everything look like a room with a cotton candy rug. Dad always found me up there, and I got yelled at a lot for sneaking up there. I didn't figure out until later that because the floor was so weak, my footsteps echoed throughout the building, alerting everyone to my presence. I made a poor ninja.

I remember being in the auction room, trying to feed a horse a bacon sandwich that I didn't want. I remember another kid coming by and trying to inform me that horses don't meat, but I insisted that this horse liked bacon, and he'll eat my sandwich if I just kept at it. The horse hated me.

I also remember my first girlfriend.

Maybe she had a divorced father who got her on weekends like me? I don't remember why she was at the stockyard. I don't remember her name. I 'think' it began with a 'J'. Jennifer? It was probably was Jennifer. I questioned later in life why I had met so many Jennifers. Maybe that's a forgotten memory or an echo in my head? I was eight or nine years old. She was in her late teens. I was hopelessly in love and sure we'd be married soon and live together forever. She was bored at the damn stockyard and pretty amused by this little freckled kid who kept sitting on her lap and telling her wild stories that made no sense. Sh was an enabler, more than happy to let me live out my delusions of manliness before I'd even hit puberty. I think she may have even pecked me on the lips once or twice, but I don't remember clearly. She had big poofy 80s hair, brunette. I'm pretty sure she smoked. I only remember her being there for a couple of weeks, then she stopped coming in. I was very sad. I think I got over my heartbreak relatively quickly though, and re-dedicated myself to exploring the stockyards.

Everything seemed so much bigger as a kid. A lot of the things I often think are qualities that I developed after college had actually been there from the beginning; the restlessness, the need for constant stimulation, the trouble with following orders designed to protect my personal safety, and especially my stubbornness in the face of being told something won't work.

Someday science will create a horse that can eat bacon.