Chapter 2
Jakob
"You're fired."
The pimply teenager in front of me trembles at my words. And for the life of me, I can't remember his name. He's the third delivery guy I've fired in as many weeks. You just can't find good workers in this business.
"But I was only five minutes late!" he protests, trailing behind me like a lost puppy.
"I have no time for tardiness," I say simply as I continue to load the milk bottles into wooden crates.
I have customers relying on me. They need milk for their morning coffee and their kids’ breakfast cereal. They need their deliveries to be on time. So, I need my delivery guy to be on time. They all start out only five minutes late. Then, they’re ten minutes late. And before you know it, you've got workers strolling in an hour late, poking their head into your fridge and asking you about your plans for the weekend while chugging down your cold beer and eating your apple pie.
Nope.
I've got a zero tolerance policy for lateness.
And for laziness.
And for incompetence.
Anybody who has a problem with the way I run this farm can take their excuses and their infirmities elsewhere.
I'd rather do things myself, anyway. That's the only way to make sure they get done right.
I stack two crates on top of each other and carry them out to my old Chevy truck, setting them down in the back and making sure that they’re snug so that they don’t break on the drive into town.
The poor chump isn't done trying to reason with me. "But they were fixing a broken water main on Centennial. They wouldn’t let my mom drive through."
So now, in addition to being late, he's gonna waste even more of my valuable daylight with his excuses? I don't have time for this. I have a long list of customers waiting for their milk. Plus, I have errands to run. Then, I have to come back here and clean out the pigpens and the horse stables before lunchtime if I have any hope of fertilizing the fields this afternoon. "Look kid, you’re late. You're fired."
Realizing that he can’t change my mind, his jaw sets and his fists clench just as his eyes start to water. He's trying to be tough. But getting fired from your first job must suck.
Whatever.
He'll take this lesson with him throughout the rest of his life. Or not. I don't really care.
"Fucking asshole," he grumbles as he slings his backpack over his shoulder and starts off toward the road.
Well, that's an insult I've heard a time or two before. I don't sugar-coat shit. I'm a busy man and I learned a long time ago that emotions only slow you down. My grandmother, Mini, is always telling me that I need to be more patient and give people second chances. She says I'm closed off and need to let some people in.
I don’t see the point in that. Every time I've ever gotten close to someone, they've tinkered with the knobs in my chest and caused me a world of hurt.
Nah. I'm better off the way I am and I don’t care who dislikes it. Mini included.
I smile at the thought of the old nag. She's my biggest weakness and she knows it. She and Pops saved me from a messy situation that could have set my life on an entirely different course. They took me in. My brother, Zayn, fucked off as soon as he turned 18 and he never really looked back. Pops died not long after. I was all Mini had left. So I plan on sticking by her side. But if she thinks she has a shot at controlling my life, that little old lady has another thing coming to her.
She has too much idle time on her hands anyway. She spends it all worrying about me. She used to be out and about, gossiping and playing bingo at the community center and wrecking havoc all over town with her friends, Nancy and Delores. But her diabetes has been getting in the way over the past year or so. She's resorted to bugging me as a form of entertainment. Good thing I've got a clever new idea about how to fill her days.
I stack the last of the milk crates in the bed of my truck and jump into the old vehicle, piloting it along the bumpy lane leading up to the main road.
I pass my disgruntled former employee on the way and I briefly consider giving him a ride into town, but when our eyes meet, he glares and flips me off.
Shrug.
I turn my focus back to the road. Just on the horizon, the sun is rising, turning the sky a thousand shades of orange.
It makes me smile. After a long dreadful winter, spring is dawning on Reyfield, Illinois. I just have to go into town, make these deliveries and run a few errands. When I'm done, it'll be just me, my beasts and my land.
It's a great day to be a farmer.