Selection from Hard Times Galore
by Patrick Vincent Welsh
Blaine’s car died in a blizzard in Wyoming. He was traveling from Pittsburgh to Nevada where his uncle promised him work in his motorcycle shop as long as Blaine promised to stay sober, which he agreed upon without argument because he didn’t drink anyhow. His uncle must have confused him for someone, but he didn’t care. Escape from Pittsburgh was all he asked.
He stepped from his car into the freezing snow and wandered until he found a farmhouse. When he knocked on the door the owner revealed a shotgun and started counting down, “Four, three, two…”
Blaine then walked for twenty minutes with the wind at his face before he found another house. He knocked on the door and a young man about his own age immediately invited him in.
His name was Cal. He had broad shoulders, made strong from years of pushing around steer. His house was simple and strong and made of wood. There were knitted rugs and blankets from when his mother was alive and woodwork remaining from his father.
Cal started the water for potatoes, saying, “Boy, you must be starving wandering around these parts. Ain’t nowhere to eat for miles unless you wrestled down one of these steer.”
Blaine looked around the kitchen and thought he would have liked to have grown up as Cal’s brother.
Cal fried up two steaks. He pointed to the darkening meat, saying, “This fellow was walking around yesterday.” He drained the water from the potatoes into cups for them to drink, saying, “Irish tea,” and they ate.
Blaine smiled and imagined how much better his life would have been had he been raised in Wyoming as opposed to Pittsburgh.
“Blaine,” said Cal. “How’d you like to see something I invented?”
“Sure Cal, sure.”
Sure Brother.
They walked together through the house. Cal pulled a large brown jacket out of the closet and gave it to Blaine, telling him to keep it, saying that the old one wouldn’t do with the winds of Wyoming.
“Come on, we’re going out to the barn. But I’ve got to wake up this damned nigger first.”
Blaine’s heart sunk at hearing the word. He felt the round rug shift across the wood beneath his feet. His new jacket choked his arms. The fireplace softly extinguished itself with a small black clap of fragrant pine smoke.
They stepped out into the cold and Cal yelled, “Nigger, get up.”
The sound of the word raised the hair on Blaine’s neck, but he didn’t know what to say or do. A tall black man in thermals about the same age as the two men came running out of a small side house.
“Get the machine going. We got a visitor. And put on some goddamn pants, you animal.”
The man ran back into his shack and Cal said, “I’ll tell you, you can take them out of the jungle, but,” and he exhaled long and loud and smiled at Blaine, a kind smile.
Blaine wanted to flee but knew he’d die in the snow. He followed Cal into the barn. The man came in with a lantern and pulled back a metal door.
Cal said, “Now, what you see in here, you keep to yourself.”
Blaine could not see much, but he heard a faint gurgling noise and smelled an electrical smoke. When his eyes adjusted and he got close enough he saw there was a large cow suspended with ropes from the beams of the barn. Its side was cut open so that you could see all of its organs. There were IV tubes that came from different spots in the cow’s body and led to the several machines. There were beakers, jars, and several thousand strands of blood stained hay.
The cow was breathing in large heaves separated by long stretches of time.
“Get him a good glass, nigger.”
The man opened a small flap that had been cut into the cow’s kidney and a splash of brown liquid came out into the glass. He squeezed the organ and more came out.
Cal smiled and ran his hand through his blonde hair, saying, “We’ve been distilling like this for about a month now. Strongest, smoothest whiskey you’ll ever touch.”
Blaine lay in a warm bed that night. Cal had given him extra blankets and checked in on him before he went to bed, saying, “Ok friend, get yourself a good night’s rest. We’ll check that car of yours out in the morning.”
He looked out the window with sadness to the shack, to the barn, and then to the long snowy stretch of land. He looked with sadness down at his feet sticking up over the edge of the bed. He felt helpless. He cried. He was drunk from the whiskey, which he admitted was the smoothest he had ever had.