Mr. P.’s wondering when the school bus will come along. It’s late today. What happened was, Johnny Crawford got it stuck in a ditch about a mile down the road trying to dodge one of Mr. P.’s cows. They’ve called for the wrecker, though, on Mr. P.’s phone. They gave out that little piece of bad news over his phone, and he thinks he heard the wrecker go down the road a while ago. He knows he needs to get up and go down there and fix that fence, get those cows up, but he doesn’t think he will. He thinks he’ll just stay right here on the couch and drink a little more of this whiskey.

Mr. P. would rather somebody get him down on the ground and beat his ass like a drum than to have to fix that fence. The main thing is, he doesn’t have anybody to help him. His wife has ruined those kids of his, spoiled them, until the oldest boy, fourteen, can’t even tie his own shoelaces. Mr. P. can say something to him, tell him to come on and help him go do something for a minute, and he’ll act like he’s deaf and dumb. And if he does go, he whines and moans and groans and carries on about it until Mr. P. just sends him on back to the house so he won’t have to listen to it. Mr. P. can see now that he messed up with his kids a long time ago. He’s been too soft on them. They don’t even know what work is. It just amazes Mr. P. He wasn’t raised like that. He had to work when he was little. And it was rough as an old cob back then. Back then you couldn’t sit around on your ass all day long and listen to a bunch of long-haired hippies singing a bunch of rock and roll on the radio.

Mr. P.’s even tried paying his kids to get out and help him work, but they won’t do it. They say he doesn’t pay enough. Mr. P.’s raised such a rebellious bunch of youngsters with smart mouths that they’ll even tell him what the minimum wage is.