Under A Full Moon, Amid Ominous Trees, A Deep, Dark Secret Festers On the Farm!
On the grassy plain of Red Wing Farm, next to a tranquil lake filled with snapping turtles, under biblical Southern clouds, disaster has struck. The gentle summer wind has finally blown off the shiny aluminum cover of Hank and Shayna’s seemingly idyllic life together; behind the flirty pranks, elephant rides, barbeques and romantic trips to Myrtle Beach, a deep, dark secret has been festering like the mosquitos and tics under their Airstream.
Last Sunday morning, Shayna was still fooling herself. She had woken up to the cackles of the chickens that terrify her, and upon feeling the throbbing in her foot, quickly conceived a story. As she hobbled out to the bathhouse, with bruises and scrapes on her elbows and knees and one along her jawline that resembled half of a Mennonite beard, she was stopped in her wobbly tracks by her fellow farm-goers. “My heavenly word Shayna! What in God’s good name has happened to you!?” they pried.
“Oh this?” she replied, sheepishly glancing down at the ground as if they might not notice she looked like someone who had barely survived a fifty car pile up.
“Yes Shayna. That. And that. And that. And that too,” they said as they pointed to each of her injuries.
“Um,” she stuttered, “Um…um, well, ya see, I was walkin’ home last night and it was real dark out and I was wearin’ me my platform shoes, you know the ones with all the cork n' stuff, the ones that make me look real nice and tall. Well, I was walkin’ down this real steep hill when, well, wouldn’t ya know it, my foot just gave right out from under me and sent me topplin' over like one a them stacks a cans at the shootin’ range. Had me sleddin’ down the payvement like a banana peel. Sure did.”
“For the love of….well, where in the world was Hank?”
“Oh Hank? Oh he…um…you know Hank don’t like to go out on the weekends. He prefers keepin’ close to the trailer. Says he got him lots of important computer work to do. That Hank, always workin’.””
As soon as she had thought it up that morning, Shayna become as convinced by this story as everyone else. The story calmed the gnawing she felt in her gut, put a neat wrapper around the checklist of behaviors that had seemed out of place to her, like the receipt for a large Kheil's purchase found in Hank's dungaree pockets or the David Hockney coffee table book he had recently brought home from the local thrift store. She told her story again and again, to the registration nurses in the emergency room and another time to the doctor who sent her for x-rays. But with just minor foot injuries reported, everything carried on as before.
The following morning, the next door neighbor had seen Hank and Shayna making a quick dash for the car. He called out to them,” Hey, where y’all goin’?”
Hank was quick to reply, “Me and Shayna have some bizness takin’ care of. Now why don’t you mind your own... boy.”
The neighbor, a handsome mechanic in his late twenties, with dark, moppy hair and a chiseled six-pack who preferred to work on cars without his shirt on, was taken aback, not used to the brash reply from a usually jovial Hank. In the afternoons, when the man was hot and sweaty, Hank would stop by and make friendly small talk, ask him things like if he belonged to a gym or if he ever went skinny dipping at the swimming hole by himself.
When Hank and Shayna returned a few hours later, her arm was wrapped up in bandages and a partial cast.
“Well, what on earth?” a fellow farm-goer asked her.
“Um…well, now I know this might seem crazy to y’all but I swear I was just tryin’ to cut me an avocado to eat, and dang it, wouldn’t ya know, that knife just them there slipped and went straight through my hand. I was gushin' blood like a bloody blood fountain. Got me two stitches I did.”
To outsider’s it had seemed like a string of unlucky events for Shayna, two completely random accidents that left her barely able to walk or use her left hand. But if more attention was paid to the dynamics between her and Hank, anyone would have been able to detect the unsettling orchestration staged between them.
The next afternoon, Shayna told Hank she was hitching a ride with a friend to the grocery store to pick up a movie.
“Hank, I’m goin’ to the store, what all movie do ya want me to get?”
From behind the glow of his computer screen, he called back to her as she limped over to the door on her crutches, “How bout’ you get me that movie with that real purdy blond laydee...Meryl somthin'...Strip I think...Meryl Strip. Why don't ya pick me It’s Complicated so I can look at how purdy she is.”
Shayna didn't let her mind dwell on the fact that Hank was requesting a romantic comedy for fifty something year old female divorcee's. She just blankly replied, “Oh and Hank, it might take me sometime gettin’ back, I think my ride is fixin’ some more errands afterwards.”
Shayna then hobbled off as a big, wide grin emerged on Hank’s face.
To Be Continued....
Tune in tomorrow, on God's day, to find out the conclusion to Trouble in Trailer-dise!
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