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That’s fine. You don’t have to call fore if the ball’s headed straight into the cornfield. Just kidding. Really. Here.
    Anyhow, I’m the one struck out on my own. Went to work selling for Roy Dobson, as you well know.
    Yeah, old Roy’s still around. Absolutely. His name’s on the building and he’s still around all right. But he hasn’t had a fresh idea in thirty or forty years, so he uses me to have his ideas for him. You didn’t hear it from me but that’s mostly what he pays me for. You know how it is. Sometimes a man’ll have one good idea and he’ll keep on riding on it as long as he can and you can’t blame him for that, especially if it makes him a fortune. Roy’s a fine gentleman and he’s made his fortune all right. The only problem is he thinks since a cow’s udder hasn’t changed in a million years he doesn’t need to change the machine that milks it. Like I said, I’m the black sheep.
    Here, let me help you line this one up.
    So I grew up in the muck on my old man’s onion farm out past Wampsville, and as soon as I could cut loose I cut loose and I went. I never once looked back. Not once. My boy, he’s the same way. He was born independent. It comes naturally to him and he can’t help it. A while back I arranged things so he could come work for Roy, learn the ropes, come up through the ranks like I did, but he wasn’t having any of it. Can you imagine that? It hurt my feelings a little bit, I don’t mind telling you. Then Tommy took that two-year college education of his and what did he do with it but start working construction over in Utica. Can you imagine that? Talk about a black sheep.
    Just go on tap that one in and we won’t even count it.
    He did get some of my instincts for the business world, though. That boy won’t stay in construction forever, and you can bet money on that. Old Tommy’s always got a couple of irons in the fire. Just like his old man.

Tom
    I T WAS BETWEEN eight and nine and the shadows were getting long when Tom Poole came tearing up the dirt lane to his uncles’ place. He parked the pale blue VW fastback in front of the barn and he jumped out and slammed the door behind him as if he hated that damned car, which he did.
    “You working late?” Creed’s high and reedy voice, from the shadows of the barn.
    “I been working late and now I’m starting the second shift.” As if it was his uncle’s fault.
    The construction project in Utica had gone into overtime, which was just perfect for making Tom’s life miserable since he still had his plants to look after. His grandfather Poole had always said that there was no rest for a man who chose to make his way in an agriculturally-oriented endeavor, and the old man should have known what he was talking about since he was usually standing knee-deep in muck when the notion to pontificate came into his head. Tom hadn’t ever paid him much attention and he’d certainly never thought that the old coot’s useless wisdom would apply to him—first with his college plans and then with his construction job—yet here he was. Watching the sky and hauling fertilizer in a wheelbarrow. Calculating his yield and watching the market. Something told him that this was better than onions, but not by much. He hated onions. That was for sure. And he didn’t hate dope, except for the work and the uncertainty that went into growing it.
    “I been working late myself,” said Creed, his voice whistling in the dark. He hadn’t stepped out of the barn and he wouldn’t. Let the boy come in if he had something to say.
    But Tom didn’t go in. Last year’s crop was about used up and this year’s was coming on and he humped up the hill behind the cow pasture to see what was what. Hoping that he could get it harvested and dried and cured before the old supply ran out and he developed a cash-flow problem. He had his tools in his backpack. Not the tools from Utica, but his own. He knew he ought to take some other path up into the