My first impression was of the hair that grew like a jungle all over his body. Snow-white, lush, overgrown. It crawled along his neck and chin, and shielded the vital parts of him—his chest especially. It stopped in a mowed line at his jaw. Above that, every inch of skin was weathered. I counted four creases in his forehead, one more when he frowned. There were two beams around his mouth, long parentheticals that told parts of the story he couldn’t.

“They call me Kiwi.”

I nodded, writing that down.

“They call me Kiwi ’cause account of my hair. I was born with hair all over, see?”

“I see. And, what do you have to say, Kiwi?”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“You can say anything. Something you’ve learned that you want to pass on. Something that explains you.”

“Ain’t much to me, I suppose.”

“Is there anything you find interesting, or odd?”

He scratched his chin, digging between the white wires. “Well, I never miss work—not ever. That’s odd.”

“How so?”

“I smoke that pipe thrice a day. Should be sleep, eh?” He gave a wet cough of laughter. “You’re a little thing? You ever work?”

“Not in the field,” I said.

“That’s alright. Don’t suppose you’d like it. It’s bad work, ’til you get an understanding.” He grinned mischievously, stretching his sun-scorched lips. “I’ll pass you this. If you plow her right, she’ll give up her secrets.” He winked at me, his bottom lip oozing blood.

I ran a tongue across my own mouth. “The secrets—of the field?” I asked.

“The secrets of the whole Earth, girl. I’ll pass you this.” He beckoned me closer.

“This here the first secret. Remember it! The Earth gonna do what she want.”

I waited for him to go on.

“That’s it!”

“Oh.” I sat back, mystified.

“You hear me?”

I nodded.

“That right there the first secret. Remember it, eh?” He repeated. “Forty men and forty ox can’t make an ear grow, if Earth don’t wanna grow.”

“But, there are grain quotas—on corn in particular. We meet them every year. So, you—the workers—must have some control.”

He looked at me hard with one yellowed eye, refusing to repeat himself.

“Okay,” I said. I drew a large question mark beside the first secret.

“Hear me out now. We do our part—don’t hear me wrong. We tend to the harvest, see? And we coax a little, do what we can. She like when we make music.” He shrugged. “Sometime, she want more. Seen brothers drop dead—working. Do she care? No. We all just go on working. Used to call it, ‘begging the field.’”

“What happens to the man that dies?”