Bullish Friend

As the rooster crowed, announcing the arrival of the morning sun, Brent was already getting dressed into his overalls and putting on his signature blue baseball cap to hide his sandy blonde hair. Rushing past the kitchen with a prompt greeting to his mother who was cooking, he ran to the barn where the cows, horses and pigs were being held in wooden stalls. Arriving at the last corner stall of the barn, Brent squatted down and smiled as the old bull turned and licked his face. Brent took out a bunch of dandelion flowers for the bull, and it quickly devoured the flowers with a voracious appetite that amused Brent.

“You were hungry eh, Bill? Glad you liked the flowers. Mom tells me not to feed you any of her garden flowers, so I could only get dandelions. Did you have a good sleep?”

Rubbing the head of the bull, Brent gave Bill a good scratch before petting him on the head and heading back to the farmhouse for breakfast.

“Were you talking with Bill again son?”

Brent’s father chuckled with his wife about his son’s habit of late.

“That bull is all he thinks about, perhaps his old man should talk a bit more to his son, get in some quality father-son time. Otherwise, our son’s going to think an animal is his father!”

Looking down and picking at his breakfast, Brent rarely talked to his father, if only just to show respect with the occasional ‘yes sir.’

Dad was seemingly always busy on the farm; tending the crops, animals and his collection of vintage cars. While mealtimes saw the entire family together in one table, many times an awkward silence hung over the room as they quietly ate to themselves.

Finishing his breakfast before his parents, Brent headed over to the barn to start his chores, knowing that they were his duty as the only son of a farmer.

Mom meanwhile performed the mundane and sometimes menial housework; cooking, hanging clothes out to dry and tending to the large garden with vegetables growing year-round.

Leading out the horses, dairy cows and pigs, he directed them to the grassy fields where they could graze on the newly growing grass. When it was time for Bill to be led outside, he opened the gate and gave a gentle pull on the leash to direct him to go out. But something wasn’t right today, as the bull wouldn’t budge and promptly sat down ignoring the pulls by Brent.

“What’s wrong buddy? Don’t you want to eat some fresh grass?”

The bull closed its eyes, seemingly to signal that he only wanted to rest and didn’t care to go out.

Understanding that it was futile to argue with a stubborn bull, Brent did his best to clean out the stall with the bull inside, and closing the gate, he hoped the bull would feel better tomorrow. Cleaning out the rest of the barn took several hours, as the manure and waste needed to be shoveled away and fresh straw to be lain over the floors of the stalls.

Milking the cows with a pail to catch the milk, Brent brought the fresh dairy into the house and set them down on the kitchen table for mother to pour into glass bottles and seal for the fridge. Looking out the window at the large fields of lettuce, father was driving the tractor to turn over the soil between the rows of produce to remove any weeds, being careful not to run over the crops.

Drinking a small cup of the freshly collected milk, Brent brought the freshly packed lunch to his father out in the field. Seeing his son, Brent’s father turned off the engine, and they sat down on the grass, sharing the large sandwich between them without an utterance of a single word.

Ruffling his son’s hair, Brent’s father nodded his thanks and signaled to take the leftovers and basket back to the house as he finished up tending to the crops.

Helping his mom wash the bottles and the plates, Brent then went back to the pastures and ushered the animals back into their stalls one by one, starting with the horses and ending with the pigs. Careful not to step in any newly deposited manure, he finished his chores early and as usual, went to chat with Bill, telling him of the red-headed girl that lives on the farm next to theirs, the new chicks that hatched from the eggs and the delicious cake that mother had made yesterday.

Bill would patiently listen to the boy chatter on and on, occasionally grunting, as if to acknowledge his friend’s feelings and to console him for his troubles.

“Brent, dinner’s ready!”

Father’s shout was loud and stern, prompting Brent to wave goodbye to his friend and quickly hustling to the house for mealtime. Opening the door for his son, Brent’s father took one last look at the barn before shutting out the cold air from entering their humble home.

Boom!

Snapping awake from the muffled sound outside, Brent rushed out to his window and could see in the moonlight his dad emerging from the slaughterhouse carrying a bag and walking to the kitchen door. As Brent watched, his father made several more trips to the slaughterhouse before turning off the light and headed back inside. There was a sound of running water at the kitchen sink, then footsteps confirming that his father was going up the stairs and entering back to the bedroom.

Inside, Brent knew there was always a possibility it was Bill, that it was his time to go, but every time, Brent desperately hoped it was some other animal, a fat pig or young goat, anything but his friend Bill. The old bull was his only companion for miles on his lonely farmhouse, and he was so isolated from other kids, he might as well be on a different planet.

Waking up the next morning anxious about the possibility Bill was gone, Brent rushed past the kitchen, not even greeting his mother and missing the sympathetic look she had on her face. Arriving at Bill’s stall, Brent slowed to a crawl and realized his closest friend was absent, with only the hoof prints on the ground showing that a bull had once lived there. As the realization of what his father had done last night hit Brent, he solemnly walked back into the kitchen, hopefully looking at his father as if wanting him to say it wasn’t true.

Brent’s father looked at him, then took hold of his shoulders and looked directly into his son’s eyes.

“Brent, I know that old bull was your friend, but you have to realize that they are only animals. Your mother and I have decided that you’ll go to school five days a week in town so that you’ll make new friends with the other kids, alright? Look at me son, I asked you if that is alright?”

“Yes sir,”

Brent’s halfhearted reply failed to hide the emotion behind his quivering mouth, and soon tears rained down from his cheeks. His mother, seeing the tears, wiped them from his face with her apron and gave him a consoling hug, as if to assure him everything would be alright.

The next day, Brent’s father drove him to the only school in town, telling him that he would be picked up when school ends in the late afternoon. Handing his son his backpack, he gave one last smile before driving away back to the farm.

At first, Brent was hesitant to enter the school, as he felt like a fish in a sea of strangers. But suddenly a girl walked past him and he instantly recognized her as the farmgirl next door. Rushing into the school with a new sense of curiosity, he entered the only room in the building, and noticing the red headed girl sitting in the back, he chose to sit next to her, too nervous to look at her directly.

When the teacher noticed Brent in the back, he walked over and offered a handshake to the farming boy, welcoming him to the classroom.

“Brent is it? Your parents told us you’d be coming, so we’re happy to have you join us. You can call me Mister I, it’s short for Mister Ironmonger.”

Heading back to the front of the class, Mister I addressed the morning tasks for the children,

“Alright class, attention please. Please take out your chalk boards and practice writing each letter in handwriting script. Remember to do both the capital and lowercase letters.”

Unsure of how to even start, Brent looked over at the girl’s board and watched as she wrote the most beautiful letter ‘A’. Following her example, he tried to match the smooth curves and connected lines but ended up with something that resembled a scribbled letter eight.

Mister Ironmonger checked Brent’s work and commended his effort but showed him how to write a capital ‘A’ properly.

“Brent, the key is to keep the chalk on the board without lifting it until you are finished writing; whether that be a letter or even a word.”

“Yes sir,”

Nodding his head in acknowledgement, Brent continued trying his best but had long way to go before he could catch up to the level of the other students.

Thinking about Bill while he listened to the teacher, Brent unintentionally began talking in his mind to his absent friend.

You should see this Bill, there’s a map of the entire country and our town is just a little dot on the map!

As the class ended and everyone got ready to go home, Brent continued his one-way conversation in his mind and his distracted nature worried Mister Ironmonger quite a bit.

Taking Brent’s father aside, he relayed his concerns about the boy, stating how he would talk silently to himself and even laughed at what seemed to be nothing in particular.

Thanking the teacher for his insight, Brent’s father drove home with his son, with a wrinkle of concern showing on his face. Taking a glance at Brent, the boy was moving his lips but no sound was coming out, as if he was talking silently to someone.

“Son…who are you talking to?”

The worried look on his face was partially hidden by the stern frown, signaling that he cared for his son, but at the same time disapproved of his son’s behaviour.

“Brent, I asked you who are you talking to?”

This time, his tone of voice was more stern and louder as he demanded an answer.

“I’m talking to Bill…”

Hearing those troubling words made his father’s heart sink into his stomach. Perhaps shooting the bull was not such a great idea.

“Son, your friend the bull is dead…here, I want you to see something.”

Pulling into the farmhouse, they got out and Brent followed his father obediently to the slaughterhouse, hesitating for a second before going in; the smell of death suffocating the boy.

Brent’s father then took an item from the back of the room and gave it to his son, as if to convince him that his best friend was really gone.

“Brent, this is the horn from Bill. He’s gone now. He’s not listening anymore. You have to accept that. Do you understand young man?”

Shuddering while holding onto the horn, Brent started shaking and hunched down and held onto his knees, as if to refuse to accept the reality his father was trying so hard to convince him to believe.

“No…no! Bill is here. Bill is with me…No. No!”

Picking up his boy and putting him on his shoulders, Brent’s father carefully carried his crying son into the house, hopeful that the boy’s mind and heart would heal from the wound of losing his one and only friend.