Brother on Duty

Prologue

The grain swallowed me. My legs sank. My arms sank. It bit me everywhere.

We spent the summer of 1972 on the French farm in Roger Mills County, Oklahoma, where my older brother Mark turned thirteen. I was too young to understand teenagers—or danger—but old enough to climb anything.

My dad’s mother—my Grandma Lola French—wasn’t exactly kid-friendly, at least not to me. She was seventy-five and very hard of hearing. Cooking? She’d given up, so our meals came from plastic wrappers. We ate standing at a small wooden table in a dark, forgotten kitchen. The TV blared “her stories” from the next room. She never looked at me. Whatever I did—or didn’t do—mattered about as much as my empty doughnut wrapper I threw into the trash.

The screen door slammed behind me as I stepped outside. The morning air was already hot. Barefoot and restless, I stood on the back porch, mad, my face unwashed, still wearing yesterday’s clothes.

The yard was empty. Dust swirled where I had last seen Mark. The only sound was insects buzzing in the still, hot air. I called his name into the emptiness, but he was gone. We weren’t playmates, but until that summer, we had always been together—and now it felt like he didn’t even notice me.

The porch felt small and suffocating, so I jumped off, bare feet dodging weeds full of stickers. I ran across the yard, following the path to the barn, looking for Mark—or maybe just adventure.

I found adventure all right—and a lesson: you can’t float in grain.

Moments ago, I stood at the base of the grain bin. It rose higher than our two-story house, corrugated steel glinting in the sun beside Grandpa French’s barn. A ladder was welded to its side. I climbed it like Spider-Man, without a flicker of fear. The steel rebar rungs bit into my bare feet and hands under the scorching morning heat. Heights didn’t scare me. At home, Mark and I climbed out my bedroom window and sat on the roof, watching storms roll in. To get down, we scooted to the edge and jumped, trusting the yard to break our fall. The landing always hurt my ankles, but I never complained. I chased after Mark, humming the Mission Impossible theme. That day on the French farm, without Mark to follow, I climbed alone.

At the top of the ladder, I perched on a metal platform, legs dangling. Another ladder hung below my feet. The door at the bin’s summit stood open, and below, the grain glittered like gold. I imagined jumping in and climbing back out again. I looked around from my high perch. In the distant field, dust trailed behind Grandpa’s tractor, swirling over the red dirt. I pushed off from the ladder. “Remember the Alamo!” I shouted.

My body plunged into the grain. Kernels swirled around me—up to my legs, my waist, my chest. A cloud of dust puffed up just like in a Wile E. Coyote cartoon. The grain pressed against my armpits. I stretched my legs and wiggled my toes, hunting for something solid to push against. Every move sank me deeper. Shouts bounced off the metal walls and slapped back in my face. My throat burned, scratchy dust stung my eyes. Over and over, my yelling bounced back. Was anyone out there? The air was all dust. I coughed, gulping shallow breaths that barely filled my chest. Fingers dug into the grain, holding on tight. Cool, clean air from my bedroom vent flashed in my mind. Stillness was my only hope.

I used to lie on my bedroom floor, listening to my brothers’ music drift up from their room below. That year, they played Led Zeppelin IV so often I memorized every word of Stairway to Heaven. Our church said the song was dangerous—played backward, it invited the devil into our souls—but I knew every word by heart.

Morning slid into afternoon. Heat turned the bin into an oven, baking me like a loaf of bread. Sunlight streamed through the opening, making dust float and glitter like gold. I sang Stairway to Heaven from start to finish—and then again. My voice drifted up through the open top, like my brother's music drifting from the AC vent into my bedroom. My voice gave out. Sweat stung my closed eyes. Eyelids heavy, my body begged me to go to sleep. A clatter from above made me flinch. “Hey idiot, grab my hand!”

Mark stood on a narrow rung, balanced like the Pied Piper, staring straight at me. His hand stretched down, and I grabbed it. He hauled me onto the ladder. Grain spilled from my clothes as I shook, almost slipping, and Mark held my arm tight, muttering his usual: “You stupid idiot.” I collapsed, coughing and gasping. Mark didn’t ask why I’d fallen in or even notice my coughs. He just stared and said, “How do you know all the words to Stairway to Heaven?”

Before I could answer, my skin itched like a thousand tiny cornbugs doing the hokey pokey under my clothes. When I scratched, it burned like fire. I clawed at my legs and torso. My whole body shook, crying so hard my throat ached. Mark dragged me to the house.

Grandma Lola sat in front of the TV, fiddling with a pile of orange peels in her lap. Mark shouted, telling her what had happened. She cupped a hand around her ear and kept saying, “Huh? Huh?” over the static of the television. Finally, she glanced at me, her face pinched. Something clicked, and she moved faster than I’d ever seen—angry that my mess had dragged her from the TV. She waved us toward the bathroom. “Strip her!” she yelled. Mark helped me into the tub. The cold water shocked me, making the itching worse. Grandma Lola heated water in a kettle and poured it over me; the warmth finally easing some of the burning. The water smelled faintly of metal, and the sudden heat made goosebumps prickle all over my arms. Then she scrubbed me with a dirty bar of Lifebuoy soap.

I coughed and blew gray dust out of my nose. When I was finally clean, my face went hot. My arms flew up, trying to cover myself, and I shrank under the scratchy towel. I had never been naked around anyone but my mom. My skin still itched and stung, as if it remembered every tiny grain. Then I asked for some lotion. Grandma handed me a bottle of Oil of Olay. I squirted some on my hands. It smelled funny and felt sticky, but it helped a little.

Later, I lay on the bed. My skin hummed. My lungs ached. I didn’t sing again. I listened—for footsteps, voices, anything moving toward me. No one hugged me. No one said they were glad I was alive. I was seven. More than twenty people die in grain bins like that one every year. I didn’t. I had a brother on duty.