This piece came out of an assignment from a memoir class taken in the spring of 2006. The assignment was to write a piece in the second person incorporating a song that was on the charts when you were 13 years old. The song I Love A Rainy Night by Eddie Rabbitt instantly came to mind. The year it was big, we must have heard it hundreds of times on the little am radio out in the barn. Enjoy.
You’re sitting in class. Pop quiz. Crap. You didn’t study. The sweat bursts from your pores. Why didn’t you study? You’re sweating so much the wetness grows under your arms, across your back, pooling under your butt, in the divot of the plastic chair. Your clothes will be ruined. Looking down to assess the damage, you see that you aren’t wearing any clothes. Forget the pop quiz, this is serious.
The bell rings – oh thank god, you’re saved. If you could just get up and get to your locker without anyone noticing. Your legs are stuck to the chair. It’s all the sweat. The bell keeps ringing, and ringing. Ringing. Please, please make it stop.
“Time to get up!”
The lights flash. Without thinking, you open your eyes, then squeeze them shut again, pulling the pillow over your head. The ghostly image of your mother standing in the doorway floats around your retinas.
Groaning, you roll out of bed, taking the covers with you.
It’s too early. Too, too early. You pull on the same dirty jeans and old sweatshirt that you’ve been wearing every morning this week.
Your mom’s waiting in the kitchen with two buckets, one large and empty, the small one steaming. “Morning, honey,” she says, a smile in her voice. Your eyes still aren’t focusing in the harsh, fluorescent light of the kitchen. How can she be so chipper? It’s the butt crack of dawn.
Together you slip down the stairs, and into the garage. The path is so familiar you don’t even turn on a light, and still avoid the stair that creaks.
Outside the cold hits your face, and you see her waiting at the gate for you, udder swollen and pink. It’s been twelve hours; it’s time to milk the cow again.
Mom opens the stanchion and turns on the old AM radio. You grab a bucket of grain and throw it and a flake of hay in the feed tray. The cow, never named because she was bought as a beef cow, chews contentedly.
After washing the udder, you take your position on her left, mom on her right, sit on the low stools and start pulling. An unorthodox way to milk a cow, it didn’t take you city slickers long to figure out it made the milking go twice as fast. It takes just a moment for the rhythm to start, and soon you and your mom are milking to the beat of Eddie Rabbitt’s “I Love a Rainy Night.”
Your eyes close, your head rests against the warm flank of the cow. It’s no use complaining, your mom will just tell you that hard work builds character and makes you interesting. What you don’t know yet is that she’s right. Later, you will be writing an essay about it that helps you get into that private liberal arts college and takes you away from this small farm and small town. You’ll have stories to tell your new friends who’ve always lived in a city. You’ll develop the self-discipline that helps you build a successful business. It will be the fodder for a writing class assignment.
But you don’t know any of that right now. What you do know is that you’re the only person in the 7th grade at Moss Junior High School who gets up at 5:00 AM in the morning to milk a cow. A part of you hates it, especially the part that wants to be like the other 7th graders. But then again, a part of you, the part that likes to be different, is okay with it too. You inhale deeply the sweet musky smell of the cow and continue pulling in rhythm, knowing that, with your mom helping, you’ll be done very soon.
Comments