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Nicole Chapman Thesis.Pdf (593.0Kb) I'm Sorry to Hear That Research Thesis Presented in partial fulfillment of requirements for graduation with research distinction in English in the undergraduate colleges of The Ohio State University by Nicole Marie Chapman The Ohio State University April 2014 Project Advisor: Professor Lee Martin, Department of English Walking Down the Corn I hadn't put much thought into people leaving our small, Ohio town. Until the winter before my graduation, I thought that people lived and died in the same place they were grown. But something shifted along with the snow drifts and the cold winds; people got restless and started to leave. Some slipped away without warning like my father who snuck out in the middle of the night to be with the chubby woman from church. She used to sit close to our pew, singing in a high pitched whistle while I counted cracks in the ceiling. Now her place in church was empty along with my father's. Others, like my friends, were moving at top speed towards graduation with plans for the rest of their lives that didn't include me. My two best friends were starting college on the west coast in the fall and intended to cap off the summer by hitchhiking across two states to see a band. I told myself I didn't ask which band because I didn't care, but to be honest I wanted to be there with them, thumb pointed out towards the road. My girlfriend, Annie, was going to college in New York. For her school was just a backup because she planned to be discovered while she was living in the city. She was going to be famous by the end of her first year– guaranteed. I didn't tell her that the gap in her front teeth or the fact that her left breast was larger than the right would hold her back. How did she think she could ever be discovered when she was so unremarkable? For me, the summer and the lifetime after loomed ahead, threatening to be hard and uneventful. Just another few months in a long line of months that added up to nothing. Unable to improve what was coming, I felt like I was on the tracks, watching an oncoming train with the placid gaze of a cow. When my father left he took his paycheck and what was left in the bank account. We didn't have the extra money for me to think about leaving town. We were the 2 definition of dirt poor with the only exception being we didn't own any dirt. Our apartment, moored in a cement wasteland of parking lots, was on the edge of town just far enough away from the corn fields that a kid could almost slip the title of country. ____ Getting a job at the mill to help with bills took almost no effort. It took even less effort to cancel my enrollment at the community college. I hadn't been excited about going so it didn't bother me to end it before it started. My mother's eyes watered when I told her my plans. She said all of those men at the mill were just like my father, said the work was too dangerous, said I could always try school next year. Despite her concerns on my first day she packed me a lunch and a note saying good luck and be safe, leaving both next to my keys. The sun wasn't up when I reached the mill, but there were workers rushing around the yard already dirty. At the processing trailer I greeted a man simply titled, Hiring Manager. I was handed papers to sign, and not knowing what they were I put my signature to each one that shuffled across the desk. "Your foreman is going to be Lowell." "Okay." "Don't look for him before noon; bastard will be asleep in the office. Look for Dib, younger guy at bin twelve." I watched the man's bald head bob above his paperwork. There were a few beads of sweat, resting in the creases of his forehead. "You might know him. Went to East High. You went to East High, right?" "Just graduated, sir." 3 "Uh-huh." I could see he was doing calculations in his head. "I think he left there about ten years ago. Dib Sullivant?" "Sorry," I said, shaking my head. "Doesn't matter. Dib will have the orders for the day. Listen to him. He'll keep you out of trouble; show you what to do. Keep your questions on the lean side and the two of you will be fine." Stretching his plump figure over the desk, he held out a hand and we completed my hiring with a limp, clammy shake. "Thank you," I said. I dropped his hand and wiped mine off on my jeans. "Tonight, you'll want to take back that thank you." There was an awkward pause as we looked at each other in the cramped trailer. "If you head out of here and take a left, you'll find bin twelve. Good luck." He eased back into his desk to shuffle more papers. I took my second good luck of the day and rushed out the door. I wasn't sure what bin twelve looked like or what Dib looked like, but I was going to keep moving until I saw a number twelve or a man that looked like he was named Dib. As I walked, I imagined Annie in New York. She hadn't left yet, but leaving was all she talked about. I tried not to, but all I could see was her striking up a conversation with a man. Not a boy, but a man, who would give her a business card and a line about how stunning she was. How many minutes, hours, days would it take for her to put all her memories of me in a box marked high school and move on? "You've gone too far. Twelve is back there." The voice came from behind me. I turned to see a man, older than myself standing in the middle of the path. I didn't recognize him from school or around town or anywhere. Taller than me and stockier, he stood with a casual slouch and crossed arms. The sun was just breaking over 4 the corn fields, but he had a pair of dark sunglasses covering his eyes and a cigarette in his mouth. Not sure what I expected, but a hung-over cowboy was what I got. "Sorry," I said. Fumbling, I took my hands out my pockets and extended one to him. "I'm, Ethan." He took my hand and gave it a quick, but firm shake. His hands were rough and seemed triple the size my own. They seemed to match the low, raspy draw of his voice that hinted at southern roots. "Let's get to it," he said. He turned away without introducing himself. We walked in silence to a small bin with a faded, red twelve painted on the outside. "Twelve," he said, pointing at the number. I felt stupid for having walked right past it. The number was huge. "Got it," I said. He turned off the path past the bin to a large open barn. "This is our barn. You'll spend most of your time here." I looked from Dib to the barn– both dusty and worn. My mother told me the mill wasn't what she wanted for me, but it would be a stable choice. Everyone had to eat so everyone needed corn. I could raise a family on the income from the mill if I was there long enough. She had settled and thought I should too. "What should I do?" I asked. "Take the full bags of corn and move them to the pallets outside. Sound fair?" "Yeah. And when I'm done?" "You go home. Should take most of the day," he said. Without another word he walked off towards the bin and started up the auger to make new bags for me to move. I pushed, pulled, and dragged bags around the barn until lunch. Shirt clinging to my chest with sweat and palms bloody, I headed to my truck to eat. Passing a row of picnic tables 5 on the way, I noticed Dib sitting at the far end, alone with a book in one hand and a pen in the other. A white bread sandwich, wrapped in wax paper, sat untouched next to him. He still had his sunglasses on and didn't look up as I passed. A few of the other hands snickered as I walked by and scooted in their seats so there were no spaces left. Sitting in the bed of my truck, I dangled my feet off the edge and rolled a sweating Coke can between my hands to soothe the blisters. In front of me the corn bobbed back and forth in the heated wind. Our apartment was a few miles past the corn, but from this angle it was almost impossible to image there were paved parking lots or laundry mats lined with of rows and rows of humming machines. My mother would be standing near one of these machines; soiled sheets filling her arms. The commercial laundry, her second job, was the reason her fingers were raw and the reason our apartment stank of chemically manufactured flowers. I let myself lay back in the bed of the truck and looked up at the sky.
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