Rolled Corn Tortilla of The Rusty Barn

I. Cymbal’s Curtains were Not Drawn over Rolling Hills. Cymbal (me) had learned from dad to be attentive to morning Bugles

Summer showed up in town and with it showed up in town my favorite attitude about nighttime. Summer nights, everybody knew. “The thing is” I said, spinning a wink-ridden shoe in the dugout, “Wife and I bought a Rusty Barn miles down the two-lane. Sunset. After that the Mainstreet Goers are invited out of mainstreet and over to the under the sky-leaking roofs of my Rusty Barn!”

Everyone: Count us in!

II. Setting up is important

And at first, my wife Bandstand and I thought about the circumference of the performer’s stage.

After one Lp, we settled on a three-yards circumference! For our barn was only about a few hundred square feet set in less than a rusty acre. At one point, she and I dropped our setting up things and we watched the barn roof open up past the two-by-fours and all those North, South, East, West, top-of-barn birds we have so many of: Sunshine! Dust danced everywhere under the light like Dust Promnight. “I imagine the Cavalry will be able to squeeze in on this stage, Cymbal, but we’ll have to see. I know the mainstreet goers, Lenny and Sarah, New Lenny, and of course the Old Man Serious will have plenty of room to Promenade on the hay in the middle, but this Band is the biggest we’ve ever booked for the Barn. We’ve never booked anything in the Barn.” Bandstand said. She was guessing how things would go.

“It’ll work,” I said, “You know those paintings? The ones with all the cavalry scrunched in one place. Think of battlefields. If the performer’s stage is a battlefield, everybody will fit with room enough for dumb old Serious to set his coat on the edge. So let’s stop guessing and wait in the chairs for the Mainstreet Goers to mozy their way down the two-lane.” With that, we shut up and the wood and rust that the barn was made of neighed like a horse would. There’s no animals.

III. More pictures of the waiting

So we set up the chairs in front of the barn. In front of the end of the two-lane, we watched, focusing on the trees on either side. For we knew that Mainstreet Goers were sheepish, and on their way to us they wouldn’t be upfront about it. No! They weaved in and out of the trees, in front of the barn, for hours! Under the sun! Lenny was on a bike and the bike was weaving like a loom! Ha! Bandstand had rusty golden binoculars so she could see all of the funny faces. We knew from our time on Mainstreet that the four of our upcoming guests consulted a chart attached to the sun to decide which funny face to make and when. Bandstand was honest about all of this: “In truth, summer, summer nights, our acre, our dumb rusty barn, are all about the waiting and the funny faces and sunshine that come alongside our watching!” She had crumbs from the snack we were eating planted in her knockout-cute dimples. One last note before sundown: bring a camera next time!

IV. Sundown alongside the arrival of the Cavalry

Whoa! The very second the last sliver of sun left us, Bandstand and I heard the trumpets, bugles and clumping! Thump thump, the performers! Bandstand and I threw our chairs aside and opened the barn doors wide and the barn parts neighed like last time. I put on my valet hat and told myself that the Cavalry was like a car.

Cavalry: We’re Here!

From there, the Cavalry set up and began their endless triumphant tune. The Mainstreet Goers went left and right wildy zig-zagging themselves into the barn as quickly as they could.

V. In the Barn

In the middle, in the hay, our guests Promenaded. And to think we only had one candle! But the moon was so bright. In fact, it was a sliver moon and the tippy-bottom of the moon’s point was so low that it was dipping in between the roof slats. This angered one of the horses.

What’s there more to say about “In the Barn” that night? In short, that night in the barn there was myself, Bandstand, Lenny and Sarah, New Lenny and of course Old Man Serious. We were listening to the Cavalry (tightly packed) perform on our stage with the circumference of three yards. We were all happy, and at a certain point, I wanted to hang on to every last bit of it.

VI. How I hung onto every last bit of it

After two sets, I asked the Cavalry politely to leave. I paid them with a side of the barn. Once they were gone, I convinced the Mainstreet Goers to leave my wife and I alone by offering them a side of the barn. With our guests out of the way, we got the chairs back out and we sat under the crickets. In the quiet, I came up with how to hang onto every last bit of it. Bingo: We’d dry up the barn completely by putting it in the dryer for a long time. Long enough for the wood and rust to be like a handheld rolled corn tortilla chip, or maybe like a small barn-red sliver of barn-red wood. Without having to explain much, my wife and I rolled the barn across the pumpkin patch over to the laundromat. What followed was nights and nights of drying. We used every last quarter I had stolen from the Cavalry. It was worth it!

VII. Finally

The barn came out of the dryer about the size of a pocket. It looked like something in between a rolled corn tortilla chip and a barn-red sliver of barn-red wood. Bandstand and I would share it, splitting pocket-time. Splitting our shares of pocket-sized summer evenings during the snowy days. Our Rolled Corn Tortilla of The Rusty Barn neighed.