BIASED SCALE

Four cows were popping out from beneath a wooden railing and feeding, and one was ruminating and looked at Beanie as he entered the cowshed. It flopped its tail lazily.

Wally, who was milking another cow into a wooden bucket reinforced with steel bilge hoops, did not notice him coming in. He pressed and pulled adjacent teats while the cow stood there appreciating the release.

“I killed yer pig,” Beanie said.

“What?” Wally stopped milking but didn’t look up.

“I’m sorry.”

“Whaddya mean?” He looked up now. He was sitting on his haunches.

“It was a mistake. I’m sorry. I feel very bad.”

A pause. He rushed at Beanie then, “What do ya mean? You killed Popo?”

He had found Popo’s bloodied body near the pig barn one morning about a week ago. He was sick that day and had awoken late to find this. Popo was his favourite because he was a baby piglet, and he had wanted to keep him as a pet. The other pigs were always butchered, but he liked Popo.

“Yes. Popo. I ran over him, but I swear it was a mistake.”

Wally punched Beanie on the face and they both fell down. Beanie’s nose started bleeding. Then Wally grabbed his collar. He was large for an eleven-year-old kid, and not all fat. And Beanie was too thin.

“You asshole! Why’d you kill him?”

“He came under the truck! The barn gate was closed, and I was taking away the harrow, but Popo must’ve been sleeping under the truck.”

“The harrow?”

“Yes! I was borrowing it.”

“If ya don’t know how to drive, then why’d you try to?”

“I know how to drive! You know, I know. I just didn’t know Popo was out of the Barn, I should have checked under the truck and looked into the barn carefully, I messed up. I thought he would be inside with the other piggies.”

Wally punched Beanie again. Then Beanie knuckled him in the throat. Wally rolled over clutching his neck and Beanie ran out of the cowshed.

To the left of the cowshed was an open pig barn, where nine pigs were wallowing in the sand to relieve themselves of the afternoon heat. The wind ruffled the blonde wheat field. The smell of earth and manure strongly pervaded his nose. Beanie didn’t look back and ran all the way back to his house. Wally didn’t pursue him.

Beanie and Wally lived in small cottages and they went to the school nearby, Future Leaders Public School. Wally’s father worked on his farm and plotted wheat in the summer. He had cows and pigs and hens, too. These, he monetized. Beanie’s father was the local village doctor and was looking to increase his income. They had a small piece of land where he was planning to grow cauliflower and had asked Beanie to get the harrow from Wally’s to plough the field. Then Popo had happened.

Beanie knew how to drive although he was only eleven. He had loaded the harrow in the back of the mini-truck and turned on the ignition to get back home. The back wheel on the passenger side had encountered a squeaky speed breaker. That was Popo. The pink marshmallow had died in an instant. Beanie panicked and got out to check. Then he saw Popo. Its stomach had exploded into a semi-circular splatter of blood. Beanie froze for a moment and then looked around. The pig barn’s door was closed, and the pigs were romping about. The hens clucked and fluttered inside a yard across the barn, surrounded by a wooden picket fence. No one was in sight. He adjusted the truck around Popo because he didn’t want to touch the dead pig and went home.

Wally didn’t come to school the day after that. And the day after. On the third day after he ran over Popo, Beanie saw Wally at school and felt awful. Wally’s eyes were red and dark lines crinkled his lower eyelid. His hair was not combed, and he smelled.

“Hey Wally,” said Beanie.

Wally didn’t respond.

He tried again at recess.

“Want one?” said Beanie pulling out a chair across Wally and offering him his tiffin-box. Two greasy chicken sandwich triangles.

Wally still didn’t say anything.

“Hey, come on, you want-“

“No, I DON’T!” said Wally and pushed back the tiffin towards Beanie. The tiffin almost felt down but Beanie balanced it. Both looked at each other. Beanie looked away then, afraid his eyes might give him away. A quartet of lassies were chattering on a desk two rows away, and they turned to look. Wally got up and left the classroom.

The windows in the classroom overlooked a grassy field. A few boys were playing dodgeball, and kids were roaming about. A teenage couple were walking hand in hand. Wally appeared there after a while and crossed the field and sat under the shade of a tree on a rock that was jutting out of the earth. Beanie munched on his sandwiches half-heartedly and looked at Wally until the bell rang.

The day after that he’d told Wally that he had killed his pig. He had hoped Wally might feel better knowing how his pig died and who was responsible. But mostly the guilt of knowing he had killed Wally’s pig and not told him about it made him admit his mistake.

***

The day after he had confessed, Beanie was sitting on his porch and reading a book when Wally appeared in the distance. Beanie was wearing overalls and had dusty patches on his face. He shut his book and squinted as Wally came up to him. Wally was wearing jeans and a shirt and a brown hat which was drooping limply on the sides. 

“Hey,” said Wally.

“Hey.”

“What ya readin’?”

Beanie turned the book over and showed him the cover. Wally gave a small nod and sat beside him.

Wally was silent and was looking into the distance. He turned to look at the field where the tractor was stopped with the harrow attached to its butt. Then he turned to Beanie.

“You been working. How much is left?”

“How much?”

Wally pointed towards the field.

“How many days you gone need?”

“Oh. Well, we been going at it for four days now. I guess a couple days should be enough.”

“Ah, it don’t matter anyway. We prepped our field in the fall, so we don’t need the harrow. Y’all the first to try growing cauliflower around here.”

“It’ll sell. Father says.”

They became silent again. Somewhere a cow mooed. Trees fluted as the wind navigated through their leaves and twigs. A fly sat on Wally’s oily hair and walked on the black ink. It rubbed its hands together. Beanie watched it. Then he looked at Wally’s eyes which were once again looking afar.

“Why’d you come? You don’t hate me?”

“I hate you.”

“Then why?”

“Well, I hate you for now. But that don’t mean I’ll hate you forever.”

“I’m sorry. I really am.”

“I know you are. Well, at least your peanuts ain’t small.”

Wally got up dusting off his pants.

“I’m going now.”

“Okay.”

***

Future Leaders Public School had two fields. One overgrown with grass by Beanie and Wally’s class, and another field which was maintained better. They were playing soccer there a week later, using two bricks as goalposts for each team.

“Hey hey hey!” shouted Wally across the field one possession. A scrawny kid with rectangular glasses lofted him the ball over the defender guarding him.

Then Wally took the ball and sidestepped a defender who was charging at him.

“Pass it here!” shouted another kid across the field.

But Wally wasn’t listening. He nutmegged another kid and kept dribbling. The center-back and full-back defenders rushed at him. The goalkeeper shifted and squatted and took his stance. Beanie was the goalkeeper on Wally’s team. He was standing leisurely because Wally was almost at the other end.

The full-back came from Wally’s right and the center-back came straight at him. The goalkeeper shifted to his right and Wally’s left to cover the opening. The full-back defender was faster. Wally faked right and cut left evading him. Then the center-back was almost on him. Or rather, under him. He was sliding on the ground. In the instant before the center-back took the dribble away from him, Wally tried to rainbow it over the defender. When he came down the ball had not gone far ahead, and Wally had jumped too far. His foot came directly above the ball and the ball slipped out from under his foot, twisting it.

The two defenders were stunned. Beanie couldn’t see what happened, but he saw Wally on the ground clutching and massaging his right ankle. Everybody on the playground rushed towards him. The boys were slick with sweat on their skin which shone in the enervating sun. Wally was wincing and groaning on the ground. He twisted and writhed. Uprooted grass and mud stuck to his arms and legs and uniform. His eyes were shut tight like someone had squeezed an orange peel into them.

“You okay?” “Why’d you do that?” “You should have passed it!” “Is it broken?” “Remove your shoe!” “Someone help him up!”

By then Beanie had reached the commotion from the other end. He and another boy, Conan, who was in their class, helped Wally up and they took him to the nurse’s office.

***

Wally’s right ankle was wrapped in a crepe bandage and he was sitting in Trevor Sanchez’s office. Dr. Sanchez was Beanie’s father and Beanie was also in the room. The nurse had told Wally that it probably wasn’t serious, but he should get a doctor to have a look at it. The only decent doctor that the village had was Beanie’s father. She had wrapped the crepe bandage around his foot. 

“Well…you’re going to be fine, son,” said Dr. Sanchez, after he had given a few squeezes to the foot and taken off and re-bandaged the ankle.

“It ain’t broken?”

Dr. Sanchez chuckled. “Do you think it’s broken?”

“It hurts a ton.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s broken, Wally. You’ll know when it’s broken.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t put too much weight on the leg, and ice it daily. That should do it.”

“Alright.”

“I’ll get you some painkiller tablets. Take them only when you need em,” said Dr. Sanchez and walked out of the room.

There was a cylindrical plastic box on the side table which said ‘Restoril’.

“What’s that?” said Wally pointing towards the tablets.

“My father takes em. Says it helps him sleep,” replied Beanie.

“Oh?”

Wally took the box and shook it by his ear.

“Why isn’t it making any noise?”

“It’s full. Dad filled it up just yesterday. Can’t you feel the weight?”

“Can I have one?”

“Why?”

“Well, I want to sleep. Avoid the pain.”

“My dad told me to stay away from them. He says too many can kill ya.”

“I only want one.”

Beanie shrugged.

Wally kept the box back on the table. Dr. Sanchez came back.

“This is ibuprofen. S.O.S.”

“S.O.S.?”

“Only when the pain is really bad. Which it won’t be. Come on, I’ll drive you home.”

Beanie helped Wally off the bed and out onto the porch.

“It’s fine…I can walk.”

“See ya,” said Beanie. Wally raised up a hand and went off with Dr Sanchez.

***

In another two weeks, the soil in the Sanchez’s small plot was ready and fertilized. It was the second week of July. Beanie was broadcasting cauliflower seeds one cloudy morning when his dad came out onto the porch. Beanie straightened up. Dr. Sanchez came up to him. His hands were in his pockets and his eyes were slightly red.

“I have to tell you something, Beanie.”

Beanie looked at him. He was wearing the same overalls he had when Wally had come to meet him on the porch.

“Wally’s mother…Mrs. Hudson…she died last night.”

There was a pause. A long and still pause. But it was dynamic, too. Dynamic because of the wind, the rustling trees, and the smell of the earth around them. The smell of life. It struck Beanie that the same earth that gives life to the wheat in Wally’s fields, and the earth which would serve as nourishment for the cauliflowers he was sowing right then, was where they buried the dead. The dead came alive as plants. He imagined a cauliflower head as Mrs. Hudson’s face.

Beanie looked down toward his feet. Trevor held him. Beanie grabbed him back like a baby monkey.

***

Everyone in the school had heard about Wally’s mother. It was a small countryside school and almost all the students knew each other and had attended the funeral.

Wally had not come to school for over a month since his mother died. Beanie was worried about him. He had gone to meet him at his house three times, and had only seen him once, when his father forced him out. He had looked quite the same as he did when Popo died. He spoke in monosyllables. His ankle wasn’t totally better, and he leaned slightly to one side when he stood, but he could walk okay, just a little limp. He avoided eye-contact with Beanie.

The bell rang.

Beanie walked back. Wally and his house had the same route until a makeshift T-junction, where their paths diverged. Beanie stopped there and considered. He took a step towards Wally’s house, then turned around and walked back home.

At night, Beanie liked to sleep with his windows open. There was an aluminum mesh on the windows which prevented insects and mosquitoes from coming inside the house.

He was sleeping that night when a clattering noise woke him up. He sat up in his bed and listened. Hearing nothing, he went back to sleep. But that child-like fear crept upon him. What if there was someone there? He pulled the blanket over him covering his head. No part of him was exposed to the air. It was hot inside the blanket and he sweated, but he didn’t open up the blanket. His hair stuck to his forehead, and his chest felt hot. He persisted.

Finally, after not hearing any noise for what felt like a considerable amount of time, Beanie let up. He poked his head out of the blanket. Silence. He sat up by the side of the bed and kept his naked feet on the cold stone floor. He drank water from a glass kept on his side table and walked over to the window to get some air. He unbuttoned the top button on his night suit and pushed his hair away from his forehead. Then there was a noise. Beanie turned to look, but even half turned he realized he was looking in the wrong direction. The voice was coming from outside. Beanie quickly looked back out of the window. In the distance a small light came between shrubbery periodically. It was slow. And the light was bobbing up and down. It was marching away from their house. After Beanie’s eyes got used to the darkness, he could make out a shape. A fat man, but he was really short for a man. And he was limping.

Beanie’s mouth was dry although he had just drunk water. It was Wally.

The next morning after breakfast Beanie set out to Wally’s house. Wally came out this time.

“What do ya want?” said Wally.

“You came by my house last night.”

“What?”

“You came by my house last night. Why?”

“You dreamin’ about me?”

“No. I saw ya.”

“You didn’t see me. What’s the matter with you? You smokin’ with the big kids?”

“Shut up. I know what I saw, and I wanna know why I saw it.”

“You didn’t see nothin’. I’m going back.”

Wally went back inside as Beanie watched him go. He wanted to call out to him. He wanted to beat him, but he also wanted to hug him. Although the other kids might call them names if he did. He went back home.

When he was in bed that night, half-asleep and almost drifting off, he awoke suddenly. Trevor Sanchez was saying something.

“Judie, you seen my pills?”

“Pills?”

“Sleeping.”

“They aren’t on the table where you keep them?”

“No.”

“I’m coming…”