After suggestions from April and Damyr, I decided to re-do my piece about milking the cow:
"Mother, please don't make me milk the cow today. I have a date with Bob tonight, and the sweat will make my hair stink! Please make Phyllis do it!"
"You know it's your turn, so just do it, and I don't want to hear another word about it!"
"I hate living on a farm! If I lived in town like Sandra, I'd never have to be your little slave!"
It is a steamy, hot, humid day in Webster County in southwest Georgia. The humidity must be 99.9%. One more tenth and the droplets of water vapor would coalesce and fall to the ground as rain.
I squat beside Sukey, our cow, and grab hold of her teats with both hands. As the first squirts of milk fall, making a tinny sound in the metal bucket, my thoughts flow as freely as Sukey's milk. I think of what to wear tonight, of the interplay of our fingers as we drive to the movies in Americus. I anticipate the luscious, passionate kisses from Bob's beloved lips later in the evening.
While I continue milking, the smell of freshly mown grass permeates the sultry air. Sukey shifts from one foot to another and gently swishes her tail to swat flies from her undulating reddish-brown coat. Sweat drops begin in my head and roll down my face and down the valley of cleavage trapped in my bra. The bucket is almost full. Soon I will be free to soak in the tub and scrub the cow-tit smell from my hands.
Suddenly a huge horsefly bites Sukey, and she switches her tail violently, catching my wire mesh rollers in her coarse tail. Half of the rollers become entangled in her shitty-smelling tail, and she jerks them out of my hair.
With all the theatrics that a fifteen year old drama queen can summon, I let out a loud scream of frustration and exasperation that brings my mother running out the backdoor to see what is causing all the commotion.
"What is going on out here?" When she sees me with rollers hanging from my hair in disarray, her face wears an amused expression.
"A gigantic horsefly bit Sukey! Then she got my rollers tangled in her smelly tail and jerked half of them out! Then she kicked the bucket and spilled the milk! I wasn't born to live on a farm!"
Mother thinks the whole scene is hilarious and collapses on the grass in hysterics. Her infectious laughter breaks down my defenses, and I dissolve in a fit of tears and giggling. The absurdity of the situation provides much-needed levity and release from the mundane monotony of another day on the farm.
Good start. Take a look, now, at how Tobias Wolff begins his "Next Door." You can start with a line or two of quick dialog, but you'll want to begin setting the scene much earlier. Watch and learn from his economic lines, there. Try to ask of each line of a draft, "Why should I keep you? What work are you doing?"
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