12: North Carolina

“A is for Apple,” D said, “a juicy sensation. They’re grown by NC’s Apple Association.”

Baby George frowned. The book’s black lines and white spaces were drawn over, obscured by each of the brothers and sisters that came before baby George.

Crayon-scrawl in all colors covered a nonsensical picture, a fat man with a flowing cape and leaves for hair, holding some shiny thing and flying through the air.

“Daddy, no apple,” he shook his head as D tousled his hair. “No apple, Daddy.”

“Each apple is a toothsome treat,” D said, singsong, “that every eager eater eats!”

Flipping further through the flimsy pages, yellowed and crumpled, they came to the color-by-numbers for the North Carolina Beef Council. In the foreground a cow drank from a trough, while behind it a black-eyed sun rose over fence, field and forest, smiling like a lion, all furrowed brow, fur, and fangs, poised to devour the cow, and George, and the world. Forgetting his father, he started to cry.

“Go to bed, Georgie,” M said from the doorway.  “Dear, don’t show him that cow.” She took the picture book from him. “That picture’s too scary – he won’t be able to get to sleep now.”

“He’s got to hear about cattle someday,” said D. “Beef is a huge part of agricultural industry.”

“I know that, dear, believe me, I do. But isn’t it clear that he’s too tired for you?”

Just then Fanny and Clara came running. “Help Mommy, Help Daddy, you have to save us! Basil and Desmond are playing slaughterhouse.”

“Kids,” M called, “keep quiet. Hush all that noise.” She shooed them out of the room. “Go turn your lights out and I’ll deal with the boys.”

Later on in the evening, after the last little one was tucked in and the last light was dimmed, M and D lay down together in bed.

M patted her stomach and D smiled. Outside the flowers were blooming. March was for merry-making, early planting, daylight savings. Springtime was time for reproduction.

Nine members of their household, two adults and seven children, a new one every two years, staggered according to a careful plan for husbandry, sow in summer and reap in spring.

Other people thought their lifestyle odd, so they withdrew their kids from school and taught them on their own, crafting a curriculum from the Old Farmer’s Almanac.

Produce was both D’s business and his pleasure, and in 1995 it had brought him and his blushing bride together. She looked so pretty as she pranced across the stage. The pictures of her performance perched on the mantel, placed below the plaque he had won, the “Best in the Nation” award from the National Agricultural Marketing Association.

Quite a lot had changed since then. Nobody wanted to know where there food came from – they’d developed this queer idea that it just materialized in the grocery store freezer. Just a few short years after his triumph, his play was forgotten, his pamphlets replaced, his graphs and graphics redacted, and he quit in disgrace.

Really, the problem was far-reaching, but D took it personally, retreated to writing and recommitted himself to reading his own farming literature to his family.

She helped produce the books – his wife – out of pages he had illustrated. After Amy was born she’d given up on the stage and helping him with his rhyming. He called her Mother Goose with her gaggle of goslings, and she called him her Dr. Seuss sometimes.

They resigned from the PTA when their children left school, and after his departure the AG department stopped answering his calls. It was like they weren’t wanted, that nobody thought they counted. And for the past few years that was true. 

Until yesterday, that is, when an envelope arrived from the Census Bureau.

Very slowly, very carefully, M read the instructions aloud, “Count all people, including babies, who live and sleep here most of the time.” She patted her stomach.

When he was born she’d return the form, she was waiting until she could fill it out completely.

X already marked the spot on under Person 10 for the baby they expected, maybe this week and maybe next. She’d already written in his name and selected his sex. When he was born, M would fill in the last empty birthday box and mail it back.

Yesterday evening at bedtime she read the form aloud in the boys’ room, after tucking Desmond and Ernest in, and explained that the baby was already one of them. “It’s sort of like a videogame,” Desmond said, “an extra life. Sometime you get those from hitting blocks.”

“Zelda is better than government forms,” Basil said, unimpressed. “Let me know when they make Census for the XBOX.”


One day later their baby brother would be born.

Two weeks later he would be taken from them.

Three months later they’d submit their census form.

Four years later they’d still be missing number ten.

Five decades later the family would still gather once a week, D would ask everyone to bow their heads and thank NC for its bounty, for all the beautiful animals, fruits, and vegetables it produced and it took away. “Goodness grows in North Carolina,” he would say.