The Thing About Luck

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

A few hours later Obaachan, Jaz, and Thunder rode into the field in the pickup. Obaachan’s handbag was full of vending machine goodies: trail mix, candy bars, Fritos, water, and other drinks. “Now, there’s a nutritious meal,” Mick said, biting into a Snickers. Jiichan drank some Gatorade, but he said he didn’t feel like eating. I ate some stale trail mix.

Once we were ready to return to work, Obaachan asked, “How you feel, old man?”

Jiichan swatted at the air in annoyance.

Obaachan drove off to take the cut grain to the elevator. Thunder howled out the window. Sometimes he did that when we were separated.

Jiichan and I climbed back into the combine, and he drove without comment. Things were going smoothly except that sometimes Jiichan’s jaw was slack and his head tilted slightly. I knew he would like nothing better than to climb into bed. It was around five when we took our next break, and I could still feel the warm air on my face. We stood together in the middle of the field, the wind blowing hard around us. Jiichan reached for the sky and leaned back with his eyes closed. I focused on the air, searching for mosquitoes. But there were none.

After a few minutes we returned to the combine. My grandfather started the engine, honked twice, and then sat there for at least a full minute. Then he said, “I no can drive no more.” He sunk down in his seat. “Turn off.”

“Me?” I leaned over and carefully took hold of a lever. I pulled the lever back into middle position. I saw out the glass that Mick was driving on. The farmer’s fields were long and somewhat narrow.

“Your obaachan drive when her neck hurt, I should drive when I sick. But she stronger than me. Tell Mick I need quit now. Cannot do more.”

I gingerly picked up the radio. “My grandfather is finished.”

“Is he all right, then?”

“I don’t know,” I replied honestly.

“You drive back to pickup,” Jiichan said. “I no can. Then you drive me in pickup to motel.”

Doubt fluttered through me. “But the pickup is a stick shift,” I said. “I don’t think I can drive it.” In Kansas you could get your learner’s permit at age fourteen. So I’d practiced driving with my father, but our pickup was an automatic. I looked at the expanse of wheat still uncut. I looked at the sky, which was getting overcast. I hoped the rains didn’t come early. I looked at Jiichan.

“Then drive me in combine to motel,” he said.

My heart was pounding as I climbed out onto the platform, Jiichan following. Then we got back into the combine, me first, sitting behind the steering wheel, him in the passenger seat. I felt very small. I suddenly knew what it must feel like to be a mouse. I took the combine out of idle and slowly headed across the field toward the pickup. I checked Mick’s combine through the side mirror.

The land here was more terraced than the land on the Laskey farm. This made the going slower. There was no way one combine could cut all the wheat that was here in only a few days. Even though it was a small farm, right then it seemed like the biggest farm in the world. The combine shook as I rolled into a trench hidden beneath the remnants of cut wheat. That shook me up, and I had to go into idle again.

Jiichan had closed his eyes. “Jiichan?” I said, but he didn’t answer. When we reached the pickup, I turned off the combine and just sat there. With Jiichan asleep, I wasn’t sure what to do. On the farm across the street, I saw someone else’s combines driving through the wheat fields. I wondered if we would have to offer our job to them in order to be finished on time. And if we did that, how much would it cost the Parkers? And would they dock our pay? I pocketed the key so nobody could steal the combine.

The radio came to life. “Is he quitting, then?”

“Yes,” I answered. “He wants me to drive him to the motel in the combine.”

“I’ll handle it,” Mick said. “Just wait there.”

I sat and watched Mick bring his combine in. He climbed down the ladder, hopping down the last few rungs and hurrying over before climbing up our combine. He flung open the door and studied Jiichan, who appeared to be sleeping.

“I won’t be able to get him down the ladder. Can ya wake him?” Mick asked.

“Sure.” I shook Jiichan gently. That didn’t work, so I leaned over and said, “Jiichan? Jiichan!” His head rolled over to the left. “Mick’s here. He can take us to the motel in the pickup.”

Jiichan opened his eyes. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you, Mick.”

When we got back to the motel, Mick helped Jiichan into our room, where he crumpled into his bed. “Let me know if ya need anything,” Mick said. “Here, write down my cell phone number.”

I got a pen and wrote his number on a Wheatland Motel pad of paper. Then he was gone. I sat on the bed I was sharing with Jaz. Obaachan, Jaz, and Thunder were still at the elevator. In a minute the phone rang, startling me.

“Hello?” I said.

“It’s Mr. Parker.”

“Hi!”

“Is your grandfather going back to work?”

Mick must have just called him. “Uh, not exactly. I mean, not right at this moment.”

“Tell him we don’t have much time.”

I glanced at the clock—it was almost six in the evening.

“He’s going back out tonight,” I lied. “He didn’t get enough sleep.” I just felt like I wanted to get off the phone.

“A short rest is acceptable,” Mr. Parker said crisply. “But tell him to try to make it short. Can you do that? It’s just a nap he needs?”

“I hope so,” I said honestly.

Mr. Parker sighed, then fell silent.

“Hello?” I said.

“Que sera, sera,” he finally answered. I knew that song: Whatever will be, will be. The future’s not ours to see, que sera, sera. “If he’s too sick, of course he shouldn’t go back out. Don’t mind me. Let me know either way, if he goes back out today or doesn’t. I’d like to keep all my customers happy if possible. Okay, bye.”

“Bye.”

I could almost feel Mr. Parker’s torment pulling him every which way. Be nice, be firm, be nice, be firm. Take care of the people, take care of the crops.

I went outside with some homework. I looked around. I missed Thunder. A mosquito landed on my arm, and I scrambled up, screaming. A man opened the door of the office down the way. “Was that you?” he called out.

“It was nothing.”

“A scream like that for nothing?”

“It was ... a mosquito.”

He just stared at me for a moment before returning to the office.

I went inside our room, took a shower, and spread DEET all over myself. My stomach hurt. If we messed up this job, how would we pay our mortgage? If we lost the house, where would we live? I took out my journal and a pen and sat on the floor, using the closed toilet as a table.

One of our essay assignments was to write about who we would like to be if we weren’t ourselves. This didn’t quite make sense as an assignment, because you couldn’t know who you really wanted to be until you tried out life from their point of view for a while. But I attempted to do the best I could.

Suddenly, I couldn’t remember if it was my new teacher or my old one who didn’t like contractions. I stopped. I had an idea. I mean, it was a really big idea. It was such a big idea that my hands started shaking. I couldn’t concentrate on my homework anymore. The front door opened, startling me. I stepped into the main room. Thunder’s paws went galumph galumph on the floor as he ran to fling himself at me. “Thunder, Thunder, I missed you!” I knelt beside him and held him close. Obaachan tossed a few plastic-wrapped sandwiches onto the bed I was sharing with Jaz. Jaz had mayonnaise on his upper lip. He always squeezed his sandwiches too hard.

Then Obaachan stood next to the bed where Jiichan was sleeping. It was dim in the room. “He look terrible,” she said. “He look gray.” She scowled at me like it was all my fault. Then she nodded at nothing and continued sadly, “I guess this last time we work for Parkers. I know I give trouble to Mrs. Parker, but she good woman. They no hire us again. It my fault. I should have learn to drive combine. I should have take better care of my back. I should have done yoga. I should have brought umeboshi for Toshi.” She hung her head low and nodded once more.

I didn’t know what to say. I called softly to Thunder and stuck my DEET into a back pocket. We walked around the motel, down the highway, and back to the motel, thinking about the idea I’d had earlier. It felt good to move around in the clean night air. When I got back inside, everyone was asleep except Obaachan, who was sitting up on her bed with a table lamp weakly glowing. She didn’t speak to me.

I lay with my back facing her and my eyes open, willing myself to stay awake. I heard movement, and the light turned off. It was pitch-black. Behind me Obaachan seemed to have finally lain down. Thunder hopped onto the bed and lay pressed against me. I counted to a thousand in my head. “Obaachan?” I said. She grunted in reply, but I thought she was only half awake, or maybe more like a quarter awake.

My heart was beating hard. As quietly as I could, I got out of bed, Thunder following. It was so dark, I kept my hands raised in front of me and moved slowly. I felt around for my flip-flops at the door. I had kept my keycard in my shorts pocket, so I was able to just slip outside. The temperature was pleasant, maybe mid-seventies. A wind blew in my face. I hesitated. It sure was dark out there beyond the motel! I made up my mind and stepped off the curb.

I wished I had a flashlight. There was the flashlight in the combine, but that didn’t help me now. The motel sign blinked unsteadily. No vacancies. I loved the light. It made me feel safer. I knew Thunder could see, but for me it was kind of scary. There was a slight illumination toward the road, so I headed that way. I heard a thump and cried out. Then I stood perfectly still and listened. I didn’t hear anything more. So I continued to the road. When I got there, I saw that the illumination came from what looked like some kind of warehouse-y building, with a flag out front. Still, it was so dark. Then Thunder ran off and disappeared in the night. I froze. “Thunder, come!” He ran back and nudged my hand.

In the distance the combines from the other farm threw more smidgeons of light my way. Thankfully, the headlights were facing me, so the light kept growing as I kept slowly moving forward. “We’re going to save the day,” I said to Thunder. “That’s what we’re doing, in case you’re wondering.” And then I wondered if I was dreaming all this.

I thought about how my father had sat with me when I’d operated the combine at the Hillbinkses’ farm back home. And now he was far away. Far, far away. It would be daytime in Japan now.

I suddenly felt sick with worry. What if I damaged the combine somehow? I thought about that $350,000 they cost. I wasn’t sure exactly how I could damage a combine—there weren’t any trees or big rocks or anything on the Franklin farm for me to hit, but still ...

Relief flooded through me when I finally saw the headlights from Mick’s combine. I could make out where the other combine was parked. “There it is, boy! Hurray!” I jogged forward, surrounded by the din of a seeming army of crickets.

When I reached the combine, I pressed my cheek against the cool, soothing metal. I pushed Thunder up before scrambling up myself, closing the door, and getting behind the wheel.

Then, suddenly, unhhh. My insides felt like they were all squishing around, as if everything inside of me was trying to change places or something. Ugh. I closed my eyes and took a few big breaths. But I didn’t have a choice. I felt along the floor for the flashlight and set it next to me. I honked the horn twice, even though I knew nobody but Mick was out there. I turned the key in the ignition and switched on the lights.

The radio crackled immediately. “Toshiro?” Mick asked.

I picked up the radio. “It’s me, Summer.”

“Summer! What are ya doing?”

“I’m going to drive the combine. I know how.” Sort of. I sort of knew how.

There was a long pause, so long that I almost asked him if he was still there. Then he said, “Are ya sure, then?”

“Yes, I’ve done it before. It was a breeze.”

“There’s no such thing as a breeze in life,” he replied, but he didn’t say more.

I put the combine into second gear and released the parking brake, then eased the machine toward the wheat beyond. The radio came on again.

“Why don’t ya take the north and I’ll take the south?”

“Okay,” I said smoothly. But my brain was saying, North? Which way is north? But then I remembered where the sun had set. So that was west.

I drove at two miles per hour to the edge of the uncut wheat. I engaged the separator by pushing the button down and up. Then I engaged the header button, which was located right beside the main drive—both yellow buttons that you pushed down and forward. I wasn’t even sure what all these buttons were for. I just did what my dad had taught me.

Once everything was engaged and running, the combine vibrated, and I knew something big was happening. I then lowered the header with the right-hand control. Next I pushed the hydro handle, and a hydraulic propulsion motor moved the machine forward. It made it very easy to slowly push the lever to the right just a tad and then forward. I could have pushed farther forward for a faster speed, but I was too scared.

I kept my left hand on the steering wheel and my right hand on the headers’ height-control button. Like I said earlier, the field was terraced. I had to be very sensitive to the ground. It was kind of like when you’re walking and you automatically adjust your feet with each step. My queasiness was gone, and I felt more alert than I’d ever felt. It was like all my senses were amped. I could even smell better, my nostrils filling with the scent of wheat. I pushed the lever up to four miles per hour.

“Don’t go too fast,” Mick’s voice boomed over the radio.

I was feeling annoyed with Mick and didn’t answer him. He was just a negative person. But I did feel a little out of control, so I slowed back down to two miles per hour. Even safe in the cab and slathered with DEET, I worried about mosquitoes. They had an amazing sense of smell. But then I thought how they could fly only one or one and a half miles an hour. So if they were chasing me, they couldn’t catch me in the combine. That was probably pretty illogical, but it made me feel better. It wasn’t a fair fight because they could use senses scientists didn’t even understand. They could see a hot body, smell my sweat, and smell my exhaled breath from a hundred feet away, all of which got them really excited. And take it from me, you don’t want to get a mosquito excited.

Now I felt a strange pressure all over my body. And the pressure on my insides seemed so intense that my chest hurt. Something started squeezing my heart and lungs. Who ever heard of a twelve-year-old girl having a heart attack? I knew I wasn’t having one, but my chest did hurt, and I thought for a moment that maybe it was a rare young-girl heart attack. I remembered Obaachan saying pressure was the most powerful force in the world. I had a lot of pressure on me and in me.

After driving for five minutes, I idled the combine to calm down. The control panel said the bin was at 40 percent capacity, just a little more than what Jiichan had filled the bin with. If I went two miles an hour and cut 7.5 acres an hour, then ... Argh! I couldn’t figure it out just now. Anyway, who cared? Just drive.

I began driving again. I could feel my insides warm up, like I had just drunk hot apple cider. It was only me. Driving a combine on my own! And it was working. Dust filled the air, and I turned on the windshield wipers. I put my whole attention—everything I had—on what I was doing. The only other time I had ever focused this much was when I was holding Jaz still during one of his outbursts.

I was doing good. I knew it. I couldn’t see Mick because of the dust, but then he suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and we passed each other going in opposite directions. The controls said the combine was filling. When I reached 50 percent, it kind of seemed like a miracle. I happily watched the header turn around and around as it cut.

Time seemed to be moving so slowly. I could walk faster than two miles per hour. It was taking forever for the combine to fill. But the readout said it was getting fuller. Then, finally, unbelievably, it was full. I raised the header. The combine could turn on a dime. I made a U-turn and headed for the big rig.

I pulled up close to it and pressed the auger-out button to release the auger. As the controls indicated that my combine was emptying, I leaned back and closed my eyes. I felt so gratified and excited. Me, Summer, I was doing this! I leaned over and hugged Thunder. Suddenly, Mick cried out over the radio. “Summer, ya’re missing the trailer! Stop dumping!”

“What!” I jabbed the button to stop the dumping, then scrambled onto the platform.

No. It couldn’t be. I was paralyzed with panic. There was a pile of wheat on the ground. I couldn’t think what I should do besides stand there and stare.

When my brain started working again, I rushed into the cab and brought in the auger. I leaned over the steering wheel to compose myself. I was here. Now. And I couldn’t escape. I had pulled up my combine a few inches too short of the grain trailer.

I didn’t want to go out and see exactly how much wheat I had spilled. I didn’t want to, but I had to. Obaachan, the Parkers, Mick, Mr. Franklin—they would all be furious at me. And Jiichan would be very disappointed. Then I remembered Jiichan’s advice: If you ever do something bad, you have to try to hurry through it, get it over with.

I turned off the ignition, grabbed the flashlight, and pushed open the door. I paused to enjoy one more second of not seeing up close what I had done. Then I descended a couple of steps down the ladder and jumped down the rest of the way, Thunder following. I could smell the cut wheat. Ordinarily, that would be a good smell, except now what I was smelling was spilled wheat, wheat I had let fall to the ground. I kept thinking over and over that I couldn’t escape. Then I saw it: a mountain of wheat on the ground. I leaned against the combine, pushing back tears, then climbed quickly back into the cab and picked up the radio. “Mick?”

“What, Summer?”

“It’s terrible!” I said. “There’s so much wheat on the ground!” My voice sounded squeaky.

“Be right there.”

I rushed down again. The combine’s headlights lit up the night, cutting sharp shadows into the field. The pile of fallen wheat seemed to be taunting me.

I wished I could hurry through this, but at the moment there was nothing to do. I stared at the pile. It looked like about twenty or thirty bushels. The farmer would blow a gasket if he saw his precious wheat spilled. He spent the entire year working toward this moment!

When Mick reached me, he quickly assessed the situation. “Looks like about sixty bushels,” he said. It was even worse than I’d thought!

“I have to lie down for a second,” I said. I lay in the fetal position. In the scheme of things, this wasn’t so bad, was it? Wars were worse. Getting hurt was worse. Malaria was worse. I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see anything. I tried to concentrate on not seeing the usual mess of shapes in my head. I just wanted darkness and peace. Instead I saw the header turning through the wheat. I could hear its roar as well. It almost felt as if I would never see or hear anything else.

I pushed myself up and waited for Mick to tell me how stupid I was. He said crisply, “Not to worry. Not to worry. I’ll get the shovel from the pickup. All I need to do is shovel the wheat onto the header and turn on the combine. But we’ll have to pick up the rest by hand. That’s what’ll take the time.” He stared at the spilled wheat for a second before repeating, “That’s what’ll take the time.” He jogged toward the pickup but stopped to call out, “Ya move the header closer to the wheat.”

I grunted as I pushed and lifted Thunder up to the combine’s platform. I didn’t want him loose where he might get caught in the header. I climbed up after him and backed up the combine so the header was closer to the spilled grain. When I turned off the combine again, I just sat up there as Mick plunged the shovel into the wheat, again and again and again.

I wished there were some sand around, so I could stick my head under it. My life just stank, totally and completely. I was nothing but a nuisance. I leaned my head against the side window, and an overwhelming feeling of loneliness washed over me. Then I suddenly thought about Jaz, and I wondered if this was how lonely he felt almost all the time. That thought made me feel like throwing up.

I saw the stars, the sliver of the moon, and I thought wearily that tomorrow night I would be needed again. “Rise to the occasion!” my father sometimes shouted at an athlete on TV. That’s what I had to do.

Mick stopped shoveling and signaled me to turn on the header. I complied, and then I turned off the combine as he started shoveling again. We did this over and over.

I eagerly clambered down to see if all the wheat was gone. I was pretty disappointed: There was still a very visible amount of wheat on the ground. The trailer was parked on a grassy area. It would have been better if the spill had happened in an area filled with cut straw. That way the wheat that remained on the ground wouldn’t be so visible. The grains of wheat were about the size of grains of rice. The wheat looked terrible lying there in the grass. Mr. Franklin would be furious.

Mick kicked angrily at the ground and muttered something under his breath. “We got three-quarters of it up—we’ll have to leave this for now,” he then said to me. “The time that it’ll take to pick up the rest is better spent driving the combines. We need to maximize the amount of wheat we can save for Franklin. Look, the trailer will be almost full by the time I dump my load. I was almost full when I called ya. So let me dump, then we’ll clean the combines and call it a night. I’m too banjaxed to keep cutting.” Mick ran a hand through his hair. “Ahhh. I’ll clean yers as well or maybe I’ll skip it. Why don’t ya go back to the motel.”

He didn’t seem annoyed with me, I realized with relief. “Thank you,” I said.

“It’s all my job.”

“Still, thank you. Good night.” I couldn’t believe he didn’t want to kill me.

“Summer, don’t worry,” he said kindly. “Ya did a decent job cutting.”

I watched him walk back to his combine and then honk twice, though who would be out there this time of night I didn’t know. I wondered how much longer Mick would be up working. It seemed like a thousand years ago that I had thought he was a negative person; now I wished he was my big brother.

As I walked back to the motel, the town was silent, the highway empty. Thunder ran back and forth across the road. I felt much more confident with the flashlight, and I broke into a jog.

When I reached the motel office, I could see that a television was on somewhere inside. I could hear a humming noise from the fluorescent lights by the vending machines. I bought water, and I sat on the curb for a moment with Thunder, laying my head on my knees and crying. I cried because I was relieved the night was over and also because I knew I had to go back out there tomorrow and run the combine again.