Mana from Heaven

Two men stood in a field.

One shielded his eyes against the wind-blown soil and the setting sun.

The other was writing in a small, black notebook. Its pages showed long days of use, but its binding looked new.

At their feet was a duffel bag.

Neither spoke, until the one with deep lines of leather drawing across his face said, “Junior, my reckoning is about $20,000.”

His companion, Junior, with his hands on his hips, said, “You sure, Pa?” In his heart, the tally had risen to $1,000,000.

Pa only nodded.

…Junior whistled. “Well, hell. Certainly nothing to complain about. I mean, 20k, that’s going to make a big difference around here.”

Pa cleared his throat which made Junior pause. He braced himself for an objection.

“We can’t spend it,” he muttered squatting down and lifting the half-destroyed lip of the duffel bag. The damage, he presumed, had come from being dropped from such a tremendous height.

Inside, were numerous bundles of bills. The paper sleeves binding them were unmarked.

Junior said nothing.

Pa continued, “Somebody lost this. Which means somebody may come looking for it. If they do, and it’s not here…”

…Junior said nothing, but set his jaw and clenched his teeth.

Pa stood with a grunt and shook out the complaints in his knees. “We’re gonna’ bury it and-“

“But-“

“For a year!” Pa said, turning on Junior. “We’re going to bury it for a year.” He palmed the notebook back into his back pocket, the denim of which had long-since stretched to accommodate it. “If no one comes looking, then we’ll use it, but not a dollar before then.”

Junior said nothing. He pulled the brim of his hat down, shading his eyes against the sun, and then he turned and spat into the soil. “You gotta put that notebook in too, “ he said.

Pa turned to look at his son.

The two regarded each other. One, eyes shaded, but cast in the fires of sunset, the other all silhouette and shadow.

Negotiations concluded, they wrapped the thing in three trash bags, buried it three feet deep, and used the tractor to drag the cattle trough over it. The trough, they reasoned, hadn’t leaked in eight years and would protect against the thunderstorms that went charging over the plain every summer.

Time passed, albeit slower now. The panic and exhilaration had simmered down into a kind of manic tension. They both would think about it, often. This boon that had fallen from the sky and which they had planted in the soil. It made them smile to think about it in this way.

Sitting on folding chairs on their driveway, they drank cold, cheap beer. The night was cool, not cold.

Junior, his leg bouncing up and down as it did, said, “What are you going to do with your half?”

…Pa said nothing. “Don’t know. Haven’t given it much thought.”

“The hell you say. I know you think about our crop as much as I do,” he said smiling. “Come on.”

“Oh…maybe I’ll…”

…Junior waited.

“I don’t know. Give me a minute to think,” he said. Then, he asked, “Well, what are you going to do with yours?”

…Junior smiled. “Well, I was thinking of buying an RV. Not a big one. Don’t need too much space. Just enough, you know?”

Pa regarded his son.

…Junior’s leg was still and he said, “I’d drive her around the country. Go wherever I pleased I guess. Never been to New Orleans. I think that’d be my first stop. You know how the fishing is down there?”

Pa shook his head. “No, never been.”

“Hmm. I bet it’s fine.”

The two sat on the cheap folding chairs drinking cheap beer as the stars rolled in the heavens.

Time passed, and as things go hard sometimes, Pa died.

It was a quick thing, though from what Junior could piece together from all that the doctor had said, it had been building up for years.

Time passed, and Junior rarely cried for his father, now.

He stood, tipping slightly. He loaded the empties back into the cooler where they clinked and clanked and settled amidst the ice water. The folded two folding chairs and entered the quiet of his home.

It was passed midnight and as he walked passed the calendar, he stopped. There, in the middle of the kitchen, he dropped the cooler where it shuddered and overflowed. On the calendar, tomorrow, or, today, rather, was marked ‘Harvest.’

A smile crept across Junior’s face, though it lasted only moments before bitter tears welled up there.

For two hours he failed to distract himself with television and whiskey. In his bathrobe and boots he left the house, heading for the tractor, grabbing a shovel along the way.

Time passed, maybe ten minutes, and Junior felt his shovel hit the expected.

On his hands and bathrobe, he clawed at the dirt and uncovered the boon that had fallen from the sky.

Time passed, maybe four minutes, and Junior sat cross-legged on the floor of the living room, bits of earth and soil crumbling into the carpet.

Laughing, he tore at the thin sheets of plastic and beheld, once more $20,000, which he had once dreamed was $1,000,000. Reaching his hand in, he pulled out a stack of cash and a small black notebook.

Dropping the bill, he cried and held the notebook to himself.

Time passed, and Junior opened to the notebook. He found the daily notes of his father. Grocery lists and cattle notes and bill schedules. On the last page, he found a tally of bills from the duffel bag that had fallen from the sky, and a list of things his son could do with $20,000.

Junior, in his boots and bathrobe, clutched a small, black notebook, laid on his back, and stared at the ceiling. He wept.