Even deep into December, after the harvest ends and the sweet smell no longer rises from the gins, the brown stalks of long sold cotton stand in the fields. The stalks are hard, like glass, and just as brittle, and they break easily in the soft hands of Johnny Corkran.

Johnny’s a thin boy, golden haired and shivering as he flattens the land around him. He’s brought a blanket, queen sized, which he’ll lay over the broken stalks and lie down and watch the stars dance across the sky. Once, this field was his grandfather’s, and Grandpa would rent the land and sell the crops and barely feed his tenants. Johnny’s father hates farming. J.B. Corkran’s the town judge, and he’s never picked a bail of cotton in his life.

Tonight, Johnny’s friends are partying at Jerry Swan’s house, Swan’s famous party, where last year they had a keg and Trey Adams left with a college girl and banged her under the statue of Nathan Bedford Forest in town square. Johnny was invited, but he told Jerry he was sick and to drink a beer for him. Jerry said he’d drink seven.

It’s 11:30, and frost builds on dark stalks as Johnny breaks the last free. The blanket’s thin, and nubs of truncated plants stab him as he sits down. His nose runs and his ears burn red as he lights the kerosene heater J.B. keeps in the basement. Thing weighs thirty pounds, but it was worth hauling down the low road to keep him warm. It heats quickly, and Johnny feels the blood flow through his hands as they thaw by the coils.

It’s now 11:50 and Johnny’s cursing and kicking at cotton stalks and wishing he was down at Swan’s getting wasted. At 11:55 he punches the heater and turns it off and rolls up the blanket.

The heater’s too hot to carry, and Johnny kicks it and sits on the blanket and waits for things to cool again. He lights a cigarette, and spies another red glow up by the road. Johnny shivers, and watches the glow come towards him across the cotton field. He hears footsteps, and legs and arms form in the distance. It’s 11:59, and Johnny crushes out his cigarette and wonders if they notice him. The light grows brighter and only footsteps and wind penetrate the night when his watch beeps, shattering the silence.

Midnight.

The light stops, then speeds towards him, now a human figure looming tall. Johnny’s hands are shaking as he gazes up at her. “Did anyone see you, Keisha?”

Keisha frowns, and shakes her head. Moonlight sparkles off her chocolate skin, and finally, she smiles. “Happy New Year, Baby,” she says, and she kisses him.

A former educator and civil rights worker in the still segregated public schools of Marianna, Arkansas, Ian Millhiser now lives and writes in Little Rock with his girlfriend, Holley, and her menagerie of stuffed animals.

Copyright 2002 by Ian Millhiser

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