by Donna Hruska

Jeremy Eagle gave his shoes a final knock against the sagging back steps. Lumps of clay tumbled into the shadows under the porch.

The spring on the screen door whined as Jeremy stepped onto the porch. He noted with disgust that the screen wire had pulled loose again.

“Falling apart, just like everything else around here,” he thought.

Jeremy threw his denim jacket onto the old day bed that stood against the porch wall and watched the dust rise and whirl in a shaft of sunlight. He ran his fingers through his dark hair.

The more he thought about Harvey Konacki, the angrier he got. He’d spent all day spreading lime on Harvey’s farm. It was no picnic riding in that beat-up lime truck with the dust and lime fogging until you could hardly breathe. He had finally finished and looked forward to collecting from Harvey. Visions of a bath, a shave and good supper floated through his tired head.

Harvey had stood in front of Jeremy with his arms folded and head down, pushing the loose dust around with his heavy shoe.

“Jeremy, I can’t pay you today. Ben Neville owes me for some hogs. I’ll pay you soon as I collect from him.”

“Listen Harvey,” Jeremy had protested, “I know you got trouble, but so have I. I was counting on the money from this job.” He voice trembled with disappointment.

“I’m sorry, Jeremy. I just ain’t got it. This worn-out farm ain’t bringin’ nothin’ in except what I get from the government. And, with one thing and another, I’m just short right now. I had to get that lime on or it’d been too late.”

Harvey stuck his hands in the back pockets of his jeans and squinted at Jeremy. Then he added:

“Listen, I promise you, I’ll get it to you just as soon as I can.”

Jeremy stepped into the kitchen, threw his shirt over a chair and turned on the water in the sink.

“If I had any back-bone, I’d of made him pay me,”

he thought as he splashed the cold water on his face and neck.

Jeremy reached for the towel, saw that it was wet and grimy, and threw it back at the rack.

“Etheline,” he called. “Etheline, where are you?”

He looked around the kitchen as he waited. Breakfast and lunch dishes sat on the table amid a clutter of cookie wrappers and coke bottles.

“Etheline!” he roared.

Etheline pushed open the door from the dining room.

“Hi, Jeremy,” she said as she yawned and tossed back her long blond hair. “I fell asleep.”

“Etheline, this place is a mess. Where’s the supper? A man likes to come home to his supper after working all day.”

“Keep your shirt on,” she said, smiling as she noticed his shirt on the chair. She moved to the refrigerator and took two frozen dinners out of the freezing compartment.

“Your dinner will be ready in thirty-five minutes.”

“That’s the last straw,” he exploded. “I’m sick of TV dinners, and grimy towels and garbage all over the floor. Cook me something fit to eat. I’m just not going to live like this.”

He slammed out the door, stood uncertainly on the step for a minute, then walked out to where the lime truck was parked in front of the tumble-down garage.

“I should have laid down the law to her weeks ago,”

he thought. “But not me. I just keep letting people run over me. A soft touch. That’s what I’ve been all my life. ‘Ask old Jeremy. He’ll do it.’ And all I got to show for it is a beat-up lime truck, a mess of bills and a wife who doesn’t know enough to come in out of the rain.”

He walked into the dank garage, picked up his hammer and a handful of tacks and strode back to the porch. Carefully, he pried the wood stripping off the door, pulled the screen wire taut and tacked the stripping back in place.

Well, this was the end of it. Tomorrow morning he was going out to Harvey Konacki’s and demand his money. Harvey’d just have to put off somebody else.

Jeremy put the hammer down and leaned his arms on his knees.

And what about Etheline? What was the point of continuing with this joke they called a marriage? She couldn’t cook or keep house. She didn’t understand what he read or what was going on with the world. The marriage had been another of his dumb stunts. He’d married her more out of pity than love—well, maybe loneliness, too. But pity mostly, he told himself. She’d been unhappy living with that riff-raff she had for a family.

But, hell, a man can’t base his life on pity. He could sell that lime truck for what he had in it and go to St. Louis or Chicago. A steady man could get a good job

there and maybe make something of himself. Nobody could amount to anything in southern Illinois. Even the government called it a depressed area.

The whine of the door spring interrupted his thoughts as Etheline came out and quietly sat on the step beside him.

“I’m frying some potatoes and a couple pieces of ham. We don’t have eggs to go with them, but there’s some beans.”

“That’s o.k.”

“Jeremy, I’ve not been a good wife. I know that.” She was apologizing, but her voice!

“It’s all right.”

“No, it’s not all right. I haven’t kept house or cooked or anything else a wife should have done. All my life it seems my Mom was yelling at me to sweep the floor or do the dishes. But my Dad was always drunk and the kids were always dirty. My Mom just kept taking it. It got so I just didn’t see a point to it.”

“I know, Etheline,” Jeremy sighed wearily.

“No, you don’t know.”

He looked up in surprise. This was a new Etheline!

“You don’t know the whole truth, Jeremy. I just found it out myself. In there, after you left, I was mad at first. But then I got to thinking about it.” She paused and then added: “You know what I was when you married me. I planned to be a good wife, but I started slipping back into my old habits, and you kept saying it was all right. I guess I

just kind of got to thinking of you like I need to think of my mother.”

They both sat silently for a long time.

“Jeremy, I’ll try.”

Jeremy looked at Etheline searchingly and then let his gaze fall back down to the worn steps.

“You know what I’m going to do first thing in the morning? I’m going to go out to Harvey Konacki’s and tell him I expect my money by the end of the week.”

He picked up a small stone that was lying by the steps and threw it at the street.

“How’d you like to try city living for a while, Etheline?” he smiled. “I was thinking of St. Louis.”

#

---

Donna Hruska Oct. 20, 1965

COMMENTS ON: A TIME TO CHANGE

This story, written around the class assigned germinal scene, has excellent writing.

It moves along from scene to scene with clear delineation and dialogue is unforced and natural.

You have some poetic figures of speech woven into the story that are fresh and descriptive of the farm land and the situations that arise.

Jeremy presents his problem: He has done some farm hard work and Harvey refuses to pay him…putting this off.

Ethelyn is a problem to Jeremy, too. She is a sloppy housekeeper….an offshoot of childhood days. Jeremy feels his marriage has become a joke and wonder s why they go on with it …..

After Ethelyn explains about her childhood….how her untidy ways and disinterest were a childhood habit hard to break……Jeremy suggests they move into the city.

…While I repeat this is good writing, a short story must have a plot…and the Main Character must resolve it himself…thru struggle and conflict. There is none here… The unpaid labor remains unsolved. What part did this play in the story….in the solving of the problem? Whose story is this: Ethelyn’s or Jeremy’s.

Good writing. Plotting needs guidance. A good idea but was not planned properly.

I am so happy that you are in our class!