Grantsville Stockyards

Abstract

Grantsville Stockyards Dennis struts in chewing straw and I follow immersed in the manure-laden air. We sit on a stiff bench next to two clean-faced Amish boys with ruddy cheeks. They understand the buyers old and limping muscular and beer-bellied with ball caps advertising feed mills. These boys have ridden pigs, thrown fresh eggs at younger brothers, helped birth calves, held downy chicks against their cheeks. Fifteen, already knowing their world how to breed and slaughter, to comfort themselves with food. The auctioneer, clean-shaven in a crisp white shirt begins his voice like river water over stones sells dry cottage cheese, homemade yogurt, radishes and ramps. When raisin pies with crimp crusts come the camouflaged man behind me buys three rubbing his belly like a well-earned prize. Packages of puffed cheese curls come next, kids squeal, tug at their Dad's plaid sleeves, old men resurrect from sleep, wink their bids the auctioneer's voice crescendos, a preacher selling happiness. Then Holstein calves buy the headfour to go a black horse two years old, two months bred men in worn-out jeans grunt, prod, spit. 74 A woman beside me reads Guideposts while her husband in loose bib overalls chuckles at the men who pay too much for cows or goats. I'm glad I'm not a hog obese and naked, shocked and kicked, my weight advertised in bright yellow bulbs. I wish I were like the brunette down front holstered pliers at her hip comfortable in her hard beauty, correcting the auctioneer when he loses the bid. Big brown eggs sell in batches of eight to ten dozen for angel food cakes women will sell from their kitchens. An awkward-grinning man, fly gapped open, shirt buttons bulging against his greasy belly, lifts bantam roosters, peacocks, passes them down the rows by their feet. A Rhode Island Red pecks free flaps over the gasping crowd toward the rafters, toward freedom, before getting plucked down by a spry well-wrinkled woman. Dennis buys white butter and goat cheese piles it between us. In the pickup on the way home I taste the butter and cheese discovering I don't like them. I shudder at the thought of some day getting chickens of collecting the shit covered eggs. And I wonder if I'll ever be a farmer as I pretend I am to my friends. —Cheryl Denise 75 ...