The Ranch
CHAPTER ELEVEN from CAUGHT UP Truth and Metaphor | An Imaginary Tale
The Ranch
11
You would think that Petra’s vision and heartfelt surrender would have been enough to cure her. In reality, it was a lot to process, and she did what all junkies do, more dope.
The following morning, on a subway ride to her therapist in Brooklyn, she was still snorting cocaine. Upon arrival, as was her custom, she bolted to the bathroom to do one more line.
The aroma of eggs and bacon filled the apartment.
“In here.”
“Weird. Why is this guy in the kitchen cooking? What about my therapy? I pay good money for that.”
Expecting a kitchen full of guests and a canceled appointment, she discovered him alone, a single place setting on the table.
“You don’t need therapy. You need food.”
He motioned for her to have a seat and placed a full plate in front of her.
“Eat.”
In her mind’s eye, she flashed on a memory of Rockets devouring an entire bucket of fried chicken right after snorting a humongous line. She summoned her elusive will and choked down several bites.
“I’ve spoken to your father. We’re sending you to a facility in Vermont. Get clean. You leave in ten days.”
The demand, delivered with absolute authority, left no room for resistance. Another persuasive voice, stored in a distant corner of her sullied mind, reiterated yesterday’s proclamation.
“Not my life. Your life.”
The Ranch took one addict at a time, which was all they could handle. Their focus was on clients with depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. The only other person in her category was a wet-brain alcoholic named Bob. He was a famous author who had pickled his brain by drinking himself into the furthest reaches of oblivion. He was a classic, old-school alcoholic.
Managing under extreme duress to avoid using, she had arrived clean and sober as instructed. It had been a hellish ten days at the Chelsea. Having passed the drug test, the door to recovery spread its arms wide and welcomed her. Raymond, in an act of unwarranted kindness, no doubt at the behest of her therapist, paid for a two-month stay and wiped his hands of the matter. Her mother, feigning interest from afar, cloaked her disinterest in tough love. It was up to her now, as it always had been, as it should be.
The sun rose on a brutal January morning. During breakfast, still dressed like a Punk fashionista, her pointy suede boots with kitten heels no match for the icy ground and her leather jacket flimsy at best, she received her first chore. A work therapy counselor instructed her to grease the nipples of two army trucks in an open-air garage.
“What the Fuck?”
“No worries,” said the counselor. “I’ll show you how.”
Muttering obscenities the entire time, she muddled through. Back in the main cabin for lunch, she studied the chore chart and discovered that caring for the cows and pigs would satisfy all of her requirements. Not that she had any idea how to take care of farm animals.
Earlier that morning, venturing past the chicken coops, she realized that caring for the nasty, smelly birds would be too nauseating. The stench just about knocked her sad, tiny bones to the earth. She mentally placed a hard “No” checkmark next to the twice daily egg harvesting chore. Manual labor on her backside, under dirty, greasy trucks, had zero appeal. Kitchen work reminded her of the years of slavery under her mother’s merciless hand, as did gardening or yard work of any kind.
She had discovered a niche, and it suited her. Wet-brain Bob came along with her farm chores. They spent five hours a day working in and around the barn. She became one of his primary caregivers and was delighted. He was sweet-natured, not at all pervy and a constant reminder of alcohol’s end game. Every once in a while, he would describe their environment, letting loose the most beautiful lines of prose. A lovely reminder of Vincent and all his beatnik poet friends carrying on in the city, without her.
At the two-month mark, she had packed on sixty pounds, most of it fat, but some muscle. She was stronger, healthier and committed to the cows, the pigs and Bob. She had no clothes of her own, having busted out of her skinny jeans six weeks earlier. Her new attire comprised a pair of hand-me-down Wrangler jeans, a stained white t-shirt, a checked flannel shirt, another thicker wool jacket shirt in navy, granny panties and a pair of wool socks stuffed into slip-on Sorel boots. New York City trend-setter turned rural farmhand.
Called to the psychiatrist’s office, her deadline fast approaching, she shuddered at the idea of life beyond The Ranch.
“How are you feeling?”
“Like I’m two-dimensional…And, I’m scared.”
“That is an excellent way to describe your current state. It’s like you are in-between identities. I’ve heard it referred to it as being trapped in the hallway. Don’t worry. Nothing’s wrong. You’re exactly where you need to be.—What are you scared about?”
“Everything. Leaving. The where, what, and how of it.”
“I had a long talk with the director. He’s impressed by your work ethic. More than that, he appreciates the way you look after Bob.”
“He breaks my heart. I mean, he had everything going for him and look what happened. No one’s immune, especially not me. I don’t know how to live in the real world. Honestly, I don’t think I’ll make it.”
“I agree. You’re not ready to leave. We’ve come up with a proposal for you. What would you say to a month-to-month work exchange program?”
“Are you saying I can stay?”
“Yes, through the end of summer.”
“Unbelievable.”
Her mind drifted to the man in the white robes.
“You’ll continue working with the animals as a farmer’s assistant. We’ll provide you with room and board, plus a small stipend to be deposited in a savings account. You’ll have access to it when you leave. In addition, you will keep an eye on Bob during work hours. How does that sound?”
“It sounds fucking perfect!”
Elated by her new position as “farm bitch”, she set out to bring fifteen bales of hay to fifteen expectant cows. It was her newfound custom to swing one bale at a time onto her back and carry it out, over the snow-covered field, to one hungry cow. She adored the cows. Feeding them was enjoyable, laborious, and purposeful.
On this morning, the snow had melted into mud. She set out across the field with her first bale. Halfway there, her oversized, second-hand Sorel boot sunk, without warning, deep into the mud. It made a weird sucking sound as the rubber boot lifted and released. She sank deeper with every step into the sticky, quicksand-like mire and gasped for air, her lungs burning.
A few feet from her targeted destination, her right boot sunk to an irretrievable depth, and the mud took over, sucking it straight down to hell. Her foot, bootless, clad only in a wet slimy sock, hit the muddy ground and she sank in up to her kneecap.
Ben, the farmer, a rough, wilderness guy with a sensitive side, found her thirty minutes later, defeated, collapsed in a heap, covered in mud and sobbing. Several cows surrounded her. They were munching on the one lone bale, which she hung onto like a life raft.
Unaffected by the boggy sludge, He reached down and pulled her up.
“What’s going on here? Feeling a little stuck?”
“You think?”
“Nature has an uncanny way of exposing our internal condition.”
“Jesus, Ben. Are you a farmer or a philosopher?”
“More of an observer. I hear you’re staying through the summer.”
“Yup.”
“I’m glad to hear it. You’re a good worker. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
Early on, the resident psychiatrist suggested she might benefit from bipolar medication. She declined with respectful prejudice. She had a notion, a tiny but somehow formidable belief, that with the help of the Being, the one who saved her from death at the Chelsea Hotel, she might live medication-free.
The near death experience haunted her quiet hours in the barnyard and the still moments before she fell asleep. It guided and pushed her in unusual directions, like resisting the psychiatrist’s offer for mind-altering drugs. Her avoidance was out of character.
She wondered, “How exactly did I stay clean for those ten days at the Chelsea? I’d been trying to stop for months. And what about all those people behind the curtain? I’m a good for nothing nobody. How am I supposed to help anyone?”
The responsibility felt like a soul-crushing weight. If only she could bring it up with the psychiatrist, but that was impossible. All the self-proclaimed visionaries at The Ranch had labels attached to them. And they medicated the shit out of those labels.
“I’m going to swallow this thing, forget about it, and move on before I make myself crazy.”
She put the vision on a back burner with an ease that was not in her nature.
Petra flourished at The Ranch. She developed a strong work ethic and a passion for her farm chores. Her heart came alive, caring for Bob. She learned to tap maple trees and made maple syrup from scratch, grading it, packaging it and selling it at their seasonal farm stand. Ben taught her how to drive a tractor, cut hay, form it into lines and bale it. Pretending they were giant lines of cocaine, she sculpted the straightest lines the farmer had ever seen.
She mastered the art of moving cows from one field to another. One afternoon, Ben handed her a bucket of grain and told her to go up the hill, open the gate between the two fields and shake the bucket. The cows glanced at her, chewing their grassy lunch. Interested, they strolled in her direction.
“Shake it again!”
All at once, in complete unison, the cows picked up speed.
“Oh, my God! They’re running right at me.”
Stampeding giants gaining speed.
“Oh, shit!”
From down below, Ben, hunched over, howled with laughter.
“Drop the bucket! Just drop the bucket! Run, run, run…”
Then, he had the nerve to come up the hill, walk through the gate and whistle. That is all it took to move fifteen cows and their calves from one field to the next.
“What the fuck, Ben? You almost killed me!”
“I’ll admit, it was a close call. You city folk are a tad short on common sense sometimes. I apologize but Jesus Christ! That was some funny-ass shit!”
It was late spring, and the farm was teeming with babies. Petra served as an animal Doula on more than one occasion by pulling a calf out of its mother by the legs. The barnyard, inundated by more than one hundred screaming piglets running around in herds, was magnificent. It crossed her mind to stay put and never leave.
Each morning, she dragged a giant slop bucket up a steep hill from the kitchen to the barn and slopped the hell out of the pigs. Sometimes, those ornery beasts would make her so mad with their pushy ways. She would retaliate by pouring the slop right on top of their mannerless little heads. Pigs are sensitive and highly emotional creatures. They observed her attitude darkening, took matters to heart, and taught her a lesson.
As she teetered on the bottom rung of the pigpen’s wooden fence, while balancing a full to overflowing bucket of slop on the top rung, two giant pigs grabbed either side of the bucket and pulled her over the railing, over their heads, and into the mud below. There she wallowed in soppy slop and disgusting, wet pig shit. Ben, passing by at the precise moment her back splashed into the muck, couldn’t help himself.
“What do you suppose this all means?”
With a wave of his arm, he continued on his merry way, his sides splitting with silent laughter.
“She really is the gift that keeps on giving.”
He wanted to say it out loud but refrained. Petra had unresolved anger issues and all he needed was an enraged woman, covered in pig shit chasing him across the field.
Unfamiliar with the parable of the Prodigal Son, the irony of her situation eluded her, and she opted for sweet revenge. The following day, she bypassed her usual concern with the contents of the bucket and allowed a few slices of bacon to slip in.
“Take that, you little cannibals!”
Afterward, she felt overwhelming guilt and remorse. She put it out of her mind and told no one.
For the rest of the season, she tried to make it up to them with unconditional kindness and love. The behavior of the pigs was a consistent reflection of her attitudes and feelings. The truth of it never reached her conscious awareness, but Ben, ever observant, noticed an undeniable calm descending on the barnyard.
“I think she’s ready.”
Summer released its balmy grip as vibrant colored leaves fell through the crisp September air, marking the end of her residence at the beloved ranch.
Somewhat prepared to rejoin society, she moved on.
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A harrowing tale, shot through with unlikely humor and fantastical creatures.
This autofiction (autobiography and fiction) novel revolves around a lifetime spent underwater struggling to find the surface. The narrative follows the journey of an unlikely heroine from the bondage of childhood trauma to self-awareness and freedom.
It is a roller coaster ride from the depths of hell to triumphant success that finishes with a big Hollywood ending.