The Gillespie County Fair by Marc Hess

Author:Marc Hess
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press

For this son of mine was dead and is alive again;

He was lost and is found. So they began to celebrate.

LUKE 15:24, The Prodigal Son

In reality, this was the work of his father, who undoubtedly manipulated his mother’s hand—the subtle and cruel means that his father used to twist his mother’s impression of her oldest son. He hated the old man for that.

At Jock’s insistence, Max brought his smashed-up muscle car into Ritzi Agricultural Equipment for repair.

“I didn’t know you did body work. I thought all you did was fix broken sickles on hay swathers.” Max laid a cagey glance on his brother. “Does opa know about this?”

“Kinda. Just don’t go talking it up around him.” Jock displayed more humor and confidence in his shop than he had with his father. “A man can make more money around here fixing toilets in RVs than he can repairing harvesters and wind-rowers.” It was Jock’s turn to give Max the wily look. “Do you want flames?”

“What?”

“Flames. My guys can airbrush some neat-looking flames on your fender. Done it to a few cars, you know.” Then, lowering his voice and smiling through his secret: “Opa don’t know about that, neither.”

The old shop seemed much larger than Max remembered it, or maybe it was less cluttered. The value of the property itself afforded Jock good bank credit. His little brother had grown up to be one of the clean-shirt, cowboy-hatted businessmen of the town rather than the dirt-under-the-fingernails working man their father had been.

Jock led his brother into his air-conditioned office, where the Hunters Extravaganza brochures and plans for a show booth lay out among all the other stuff strewn across their father’s old desk.

Max picked up a brochure. “So, are you going to do those hunters’ shows?”

Jock plopped into the chair behind his desk without removing his Resistol. “Na. I’m going to wait to see what opa says.”

“Why the hell are you going to do that?” Max was left standing, not sure what to do with the boxes and piles of papers and debris that occupied the chairs on his side of the desk. “It’s you who has to make the payroll around here. Papa don’t know what’s going on anymore, and you have the right idea.”

“It’s just that …” Jock cast his eyes aside. “That’s just it, Max. I don’t know if I’m right.”

That comment showed Max how thoroughly the old man controlled the very thought process of his youngest son. “You just hang on, Jock. He’s going to pop off pretty soon, and then you can make this place work the way that it should.”

“Don’t you be so damn cold, Max,” Jock snapped back. “He’s had a hard life. You saw how sick he is.”

“He chose the hard life, Jock. It didn’t have to be so hard. Not for him. Not for Mama. Not for Gerdie, you, or me.”

“Oh, that’s great advice coming from you, big brother. You just run off down the highway when things get tough.” Jock rummaged through some papers on his desk, as if he might find his next words there.

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