Merriton

“James, have you seen the price of corn?” the hulking blonde farmer was at Randy’s door. The snowflakes flew in around him and Sierra screamed from upstairs, “Shut the door!” James walked in and Randy shut the door behind him. “Seriously, have you seen the price per bushel right now?” James shrugged, “It’s always high in the winter. Plus, Brazil is having a drought, so they don’t have as much to send up here right now.”

Randy took James’ coat. “Why don’t we wait to sell our corn next winter instead of selling it in the fall?” The scar on James’ lip quivered. This was going wrong. James was excited about the projects that Randy had set up. The thought of corn and farming made his stomach turn all over again. “Well, some farmers do, but ya gotta have bins to store the corn in until the price gets high. We never got any bins. Barely were able to survive…” He didn’t say it, but they didn’t survive. One bad year and they were wiped out.

“Are these bins expensive?” Randy’s voice screamed, “Sierra?” The loudness of it shocked James. He heard Sierra moving around upstairs and she came down with a couple of warm papers and a pen. Sierra looked at James and crinkled her brow, “Randy, James already signed a non-disclosure agreement.” Randy laughed. “No, no! I don’t… Oh that’s too funny!” Sierra looked at the papers in her hand and then looked at James and giggled. James paced uncomfortably while they enjoyed their laugh.

Randy wiped his eyes. “No, James was just telling me that we could sell our corn in the winter instead of in the fall and we’ll probably get more money for it, but the only way to do it is to buy bins.” The scar on James’ lip quivered. “I didn’t really say you had to buy bins. You can just sell in the fall. I wasn’t really here for that…” Sierra walked over to Randy’s computer, “I was looking at some bins on the Internet. I was hoping I could store some feed from our harvest for the goats. I found these ones. Are they good?” James walked over to see the computer screen and choked at the sight of them. “Best you can get.”

Sierra pulled out a calculator. She typed in some numbers and then looked at the total. “To get enough of these bins to hold our entire crop, it will cost ALOT.” She held up the calculator to Randy. He took the calculator out of her hand. With his right hand, he slowly wiped his face from his forehead to his chin. “Yeah, that’s a lot.” He looked at James and then back to Sierra. “Can you do a cost-benefit analysis using the corn prices from LAST winter? James says the prices this year are a little higher than normal.” Sierra shrugged. “Sure.”

James looked at the two of them. He felt deflated. He had come to brag about how quickly he had finished his project and ended up talking about corn all over again. Winter was the time to rest. Winter was the time to tinker in the back barn. Except this winter, there was no ailing farm equipment to repair. No desperate welding and mending. In fact, this winter, he was all hope and joy tinkering on his project.

“So, what did you come here to talk about, James?” Sierra stretched like a cat on the computer chair. James never understood the appeal of skinny women like her. He preferred a strong woman like Bree. Too bad, she was one of them lesbians. It wasn’t nearly as interesting to have a lesbian under his roof as he thought it was going to be. “Well, um… I was… You know, I should probably just go.” James headed back to the foyer, but Randy stopped him. “No! Listen, James, this thing will only work if you can talk to me. I’m clueless about farming, so I need to hear from you.”

James ran his hand over his lip, hiding his scar. He could feel it moving and it made him feel self-conscious. “It’s not about the farm…” Oh, this was all wrong. He had been so excited when he finished his visuals that he wanted to tell Randy, but now he felt weird. Randy shook his head. “Not about the farm, then what is it? Please, James, you can tell me.”

James shook his head and blurted it all out, “I finished my visuals and I got my monetization done and I wanted to tell you that I’m done with my project already. I think I’m the first one done. And Kevin doesn’t know when we’re presenting, but I think he’s just hoping it’s pretty far away because he’s up on the mountain so much and then he’s on the computer all night. And Bree, I think she must be on drugs or somethin’ ’cause she works at Mt. Zen Cafe all day and then comes home and is on the computer all night and you know, those two drink ALOTTA Mountain Dew. You know, I never even drank that stuff before they moved in?”

James took in a breath of air. The only sound in the house was the noise of the heater blowing air through the heat vents. The two of them looked at each other, but it was Sierra who spoke first, “So, you’re unhappy with them?” James replied, “Unhappy? No? No! They’re the quietest farm hands ever! It’s actually kinda nice havin’ ‘em around ’cause John’s all locked up in his room workin’ on his project. He never talked much before, but now he’s locked down tight.”

Randy finally sputtered a couple of words, “Project?” James looked at him and recovered a bit of his pride, “Yeah, our yearly projects. Both me and John, we’re…” He tried to remember the word that Kevin had used. What was it? Self-started? Self-directed? Oh man, it had self in it, he was sure. “We’re good workers. We got busy on our projects as soon as Kevin and Bree told us about it. We’re self-motivated!”

Randy stood still and looked dumbfounded. Oh no, something was wrong. His whole life, the only boss James ever had was his dad. He had watched enough television and movies to get an idea that having a boss was different than how things worked with his father, but television wasn’t real. Something was definitely wrong. Why didn’t he say anything?

“Am I supposed to be working on a project, too?” Sierra’s cool and innocent voice broke the silence. “I guess I’m an employee as well. Should I have one prepared? Oh! I know just what I’m going to do! After watching this on the sidelines for so many years, I’m so excited to get to do this!” James watched Randy’s horrified face turn to his wife. “Of course, you have to have a project. I… I always treat my employees the same. If they have to do one, so do you.”

Randy turned back to James. “You’re already done with yours?! Wow! That was quick! Did you say you had your monetization in place?” Yes! This was how it was supposed to feel! “Yeah! Kevin told me you’d ask about that and so… am I supposed to tell you now, or do I have to wait until… you know, the project day?” Randy held up his hand, “Does any of it include negotiating with another company? Don’t sign anything until after you present. Did Kevin tell you that?” James was bursting with excitement. “No, but Bree did. She said that when she worked for you before that the company owned whatever project you made, but you said I would own it, but you get first dibs on buying it from me. But if you don’t want it, I had to have some other way to make money off it. Is that right?”

Randy ran his hand from his forehead to his chin in one long movement, “That’s exactly right. It’s all in that work contract that you signed. Wow… I’m blown away, James! Good work!” Randy’s face was glowing and James felt the heat and joy of it bounce off the walls of the room. It was exactly like Bree said. James wanted to impress Randy just to feel the glow again. What could he do to make that baby in the back barn even better? His mind was racing.

“Well, considering that Sierra just found out that she’s included in the projects, I think we’ll have to push the presentations back to April. Will that conflict with any planting or preparation?” April? God, I can’t wait until April?! “No, we don’t plant corn until April 16th. We always plant the day after tax day… unless it’s, you know, still snowing.” Randy smiled, “Okay… Well, then. Tell Kevin that we’ll do presentations the first week of April. That should give him and Bree a little more time. It sounds like they need it. And by the way, don’t worry about them programming all night. That’s the kind of thing programmers do. Sounds like you’re doing a good job. Anything else?”

James scrambled through his mind to think of something else, anything else to make Randy glow again.

A special thank you to Matthew Reinbold for explaining corn pricing and storage to me.