140. Fighting Off the Frost

140. "Be Good Johnny" by Men At Work

I'm sixteen. It's winter. I'm driving an old pickup on its last legs down the lane. Randy is riding shotgun. We're off to feed the cows.

The heater doesn't work. It's cold. Frost covers the windshield. White film keeps forming on the glass from our breath inside the cab. I stab at it with a dull scraper. Enough of the frost flakes away to make a driving porthole.

Be Good Johnny starts playing. Randy cranks the volume knob up full, but the truck's speakers don't get any louder. We sing the lyrics, holding back our full enthusiasm for the song until our favorite part begins to play.

Are you going to play football this year, John?
Nah!
Oh, well you must be going to play cricket this year then, are you Johnny?"
Nah! Nah! Nah!
Boy, you sure are a funny kid, Johnny, but I like you!

So tell me, what kind of a boy are you, John?

We talk about Colin Hayes voice and how he makes the vibrato sounds. Randy tries to explain it, because he's a singer. In fact, he's such a good singer, at the beginning of school he walked into the MarVals auditions without any preparation at all and got in.

I don't sing good at all. I play trumpet and piano okay, but not if I'm singing while I do it--especially the piano.

Randy tries to sing like Colin Hayes and gets close, but he doesn't nail it. I try and fail miserably. We crack up.

We pull up to the barbed wire gate, and Randy gets it while I drive through. I shift into first gear and steer through the field while Randy cuts the bale strings with his knife and pushes chunks of hay off the back of the truck. The cows gather behind us to munch on the dried alfalfa.

Alone in the cab, I try to sing like Colin Hayes again. Can't do it.

Snow begins to fall.

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I'm 50. It's spring. I live in the city. The farm is gone. The old truck is gone. The cows are gone. Randy is gone.

I still have his knife.