FEED - Flash Fiction

Picture by Tracy Dinnison

Feed

“Sweetheart, you do cut a dashing figure in that suit.  Of course, I told you that when you put it on in the room on the first day of the convention.”  Sybil dangled a cigarette in her fingers, not looking at Ralph as she spoke.

“You look mighty fetching yourself, my dear. Honey, you have to put the thing to your lips for me to light it for you.”

“I know.  I know.  Isn’t that Mr. Peterson, the convention organizer in the window seat? “

Ralph turned his head.  “Yes, it is.  He’s with Mr. Brunt, the English scientist that came up with all this nonsense.”

“I don’t know about that.  He made a compelling case for the hybrids in that last lecture.”  She sipped her martini.  “Tomorrow is the last half-day for the convention, right?”

“Yes.  Pricing and financial options will be laid out.  I don’t know.  This genetic stuff sounds pretty heady to me.”  Ralph caught the eye of Peterson and Brunt, raise his glass in a mock salute and sipped.

The pair raised their beers in return and went back to talking.

“Listen, Ralph.  I want you to be open minded. Even if what they offer is a quarter more expensive, we would come out ahead.  Not only us  but the whole cooperative.”

#

Sibel waited in the back of the hotel after putting their bags in the twenty-foot flatbed trailer.  She had put on her ankle length lightweight all wool flannel in maize with a leatherette belt cinching tight her eight sized waists.  It was a new outfit.  Although she called it an ensemble, it only came with a matching scarf.

Ralph came down the steps out the rear of the hotel clipping a strap of his green bib coveralls and tossed a bundle in with the bags.  “Thanks for leaving me a change of clothes.”

“Your welcome.  How did it go?”

“I bought a thousand bags for the cooperative, Bermudagrass Hay, Alfalfa and Ryegrass.  Manage to get the price down to only ten percent over normal pricing. I told them if it works out the coop will endorse them for the rest of the country next year. I feel pretty good about it.  I hope it’s as insect, blight, and mold resistant as they say.  We’ll save most of the crop this next year.  A lot of ranchers lost stock because the cooperative ran out of good feed.”

Sibel nodded and climbed up on the running board and grabbed the seat rung.  “Okay then, let’s go home and let the folks know.”

Ralph climbed up on the tall International and toed the starter button and the big diesel came to life.  He let it idle a bit and slowly closed the compression relief and levered off the hand brake and pulled down the throttle lever under the steering wheel.  The big tractor eased out on the road and accelerated up to 20 miles-per-hour.  People followed closely until they cleared the town.  Then six cars roared by.

Sibel shouted over the tapping of the engine, “We coming back next year to the Stock Feed Convention?”

“Yep, Sweetheart.  I reckon we will.”