Here’s something you probably already know: Detasselers don’t get to go to McDonalds for lunch. You brown-bag it or, if on the first day you don’t realize your co-workers are going to be insensitive clods, bring your food in a GI Joe lunchbox. Most days we hopped on the bus and made a short jaunt to a nearby farmhouse, where we were allowed to enjoy our repast on a well-kept front lawn. I never knew for sure but always assumed Dekalb had made arrangements with these homeowners and maybe gave them a little stipend, maybe a little bonus if they didn’t shoot any of the detasselers acting like coked-out gorillas on their lawn.
I’m actually still a little surprised that Dekalb didn’t make us eat on the bus. That would have been preferable to our lunch venue on the first day of the ’84 detasseling season. That day at lunchtime Darrell Williams passed by several nice shady lawns en route to the site. Bob and Jon and I kept commenting that that lawn looked like a good one, but Darrell said Jim and Dick had given him specific instructions on where to take us.
Well, we thought, if we passed up that lush-looking lawn, they must have something really nice planned for our first day. Maybe a palatial estate with fountains and croquet and ladies with parasols.
The actual lunch site was a tad less luxurious than that. It wasn’t a farmhouse lawn but rather a sparsely wooded area, bumpy and dusty with dead gnarled trees here and there. Post-apocalyptic might be putting too fine a point on it but it was not among anyone’s top choices for enjoying a relaxing meal. We learned pretty quickly that we were eating in a cow pasture and that the cows who had visited there recently were quite relieved when they left.
Fortunately not every place to sit had cow poop on it. Some of them had poison ivy. Some of them had anthills.
We were pretty sure Jim and Dick were lunching in a café somewhere and agreeing that “nothing’s too good for our boys.”
There’s a scene in Love and Corn and Whatnot where Parker and Slick and their motley crew of detasselers are sent to lunch at “the Newman place,” which turns out to be a sort of commune and where the residents are in the process of planning a huge July 4 party complete with cases of beer, roast pig, and young women far out of the league of the motley crew of detasselers. It turns out that the area foremen have a bet on whether or not Parker’s bus will succumb to temptation and take a longer-than-normal lunch hour.
In real life, we did eat lunch one day at a two-story farmhouse where some party preparations were underway. Shortly after we arrived a 20-ish couple emerged from the house with some puppies. The puppies lost no time engaging with the detasselers, most of whom acted like they’d never seen puppies before, but it was a fun little gesture that made us foremen feel like chaperones on a second-grade field trip to the zoo.
Oh, look, kids! He’s bringing the baby chimp out to see us!
When the couple took the dogs back inside, they hinted to some of the guys that a party was about to start—a big one, boys, with intoxicating beverages! That was all it took. The idyll was broken. Most of Bus 21 went nuts. I was accustomed to stupid questions after half a season of detasseling, but I couldn’t believe my ears when kids started asking, in all sincerity, “Can we stay for the party?”
Sure, kids, knock yourself out. We’ll drive your drunk 14-year-old asses home.
Bob and Jon and I tried calming the rabble but there was a electric sense of frenzy going through the kids. Puppies and beer were not part of the typical Dekalb workday, so it was like all bets were off. The rules didn’t apply anymore. Total anarchy. Several cars full of partygoers pulled up in the driveway and you’d have through they were limos pulling up in front of a theater for a movie premiere. Our guys were beside themselves with excitement, enjoying the vicarious thrill of watching people show up for a party they wouldn’t be allowed to attend.
This was all happening at one o’clock on a Sunday afternoon.
Someone noticed a shiny black Trans Am coming down the road. There was no doubt this car was bringing people to the party, but instead of going up the driveway the driver cut across the lawn right between two groups of detasselers.
This could have been disastrous if not tragic. But all was forgiven when the boys saw who got out of the car. “It’s chicks!” someone yelled.
There had been women among the first few carloads of partiers but the two that emerged from the Trans Am seemed to be the detasselers’ Playboy fantasies come true. As I recall, they were, in the words of Meat Loaf, barely dressed.
Everything the boys had ever learned about good manners and decorum went out the window. Lewd, rude behavior commenced immediately. Catcalls, whistles, propositions—and the young ladies didn’t discourage any of it. One was wearing gym shorts over a swimsuit but had apparently decided this wasn’t appropriate party attire. She opened the trunk of the Trans Am, bent over provocatively to remove the shorts, and bent over again to pull on a pair of jeans.
Pandemonium among the adolescents. Probably a number of erections although no statistics were recorded.
The young women asked for helping removing a keg of beer from the car, and instantly half a dozen guys who had complained of exhaustion and overheating fifteen minutes earlier sprang into action, no doubt hoping to get drunk and laid before going back into the field. There was only one thing we foremen could do to regain control of our crews: We had to cancel the rest of the lunch hour.
The guys couldn’t believe it we would stoop to something so despotic. Where was our sense of fun? Jon and I rounded up the troops and started loading the bus while Bob went to retrieve the guys lugging the keg. All that excitement over a couple of young women who were definitely not looking to party with sweaty junior high students. It wasn’t like these guys had been cooped up in a submarine for weeks. They were home every evening with plenty of opportunity to talk to girls. But I suppose that on a hot summer day in the cornfield, it doesn’t take much of a show of skin to trigger a young detasseler’s hormones. Or his vivid imagination.
On our way to the next field I overheard Harley Krebnik reminiscing about the Trans Am girls. “Ah’d love to go out with one of thay-em,” he said wistfully.
Ah, summertime.
Toward the end of detasseling season a number of games became popular, games that were maybe a step and a half above your typical grab-ass activities. Feats of strength and raw courage, things like that. One game involved two people facing each other, then trying to push each other off-balance without moving their feet. Another was the ever-popular slap-hands game, in which two people test their reflexes by trying to slap the backs of each other’s hands without being slapped in return.
The lengths some people will go to prove their masculinity.
The most popular of these contests was a game called Mercy (which is also covered in Love and Corn and Whatnot). In Mercy, two detasselers would face each other and grasp each other’s hands, palms forward, fingers facing up. At the signal, each combatant would try to maneuver the other’s hands into a painful position. There are many painful positions to choose from when your arms are turned inside out.
Whoever cries mercy first is not the winner.
Rodney Bagg was an avid Mercy buff despite showing no proficiency for it whatsoever. Since by this time he had established himself as the most obnoxious person on the bus, there was no shortage of people ready to accept his challenge and destroy him in a game of Mercy. At the end of every half-round it wasn’t uncommon to see Rodney writhing on the ground with his arms tied in a square knot.
As a rule, I didn’t get involved in the physical contests, preferring the more sophisticated recreation of Cartoon Trivia. One day, though, Rodney wouldn’t let up. He said I must be chicken for not wanting to play Mercy with him. “Rodney,” I said patiently, “I’m pretty sure I’ll hurt you.”
“Bawk bawk bawk,” he explained. He insisted I didn’t stand a chance against him despite the fact that he was losing game after Mercy game to people half my size. I finally relented on the condition that he never ask me again.
He agreed. His eyes took on a gleefully insane look as he faced me. The signal was given, the contest began, and the contest ended, all in the course of two or three nanoseconds. Rodney walked away rubbing his wrists and saying “Shit damn shit,” which is pretty much what he said at the end of each loss in his 500-game losing streak. But he wasn’t through. He and Lenny Butts had been sworn enemies from the first day of the season, and I suspect it was under the Buttman’s command that Monchichi and his pals were going to pull Rodney’s legs off that day. Rodney invited death each day by taunting Lenny with childish pranks, insults, and obnoxious Baggisms, and more than once Lenny cocked his arm and said “Mr Donovan, can I kill him?”
“Not on company time,” I usually replied. Now that I think of it, I probably shouldn’t have given the Buttman a legal loophole to exploit. Nevertheless, after I defeated Rodney Bagg at Mercy he went on the prowl for new masochistic challenges. He noticed a circle of the Buttman’s followers and approached like a moth to a bug zapper. To my surprise, he wasn’t kicked to the ground or depantsed. Something was up.
Lenny’s crew had been standing around admiring their leader’s rather expansive beer gut, listening to heroic tales of how it came to be. Rodney just happened to come along when they were looking for volunteers from the audience. “Bagg,” said the Buttman, “I want you to punch me in the stomach as hard as you can.”
Jon Dean and I overheard this and, recognizing trouble with a capital TR, sauntered over to the group. “What’s this about, Lenny?” asked Jon.
“I just wanted to show these guys what my gut can take.”
“Why’d you ask Rodney?”
“I figured he’d like a chance to punch me in the stomach.”
Deep down, Rodney Bagg was surely drooling at the prospect of punching the Buttman, but amazingly enough he seemed apprehensive, as if he’d suddenly been stricken with good sense. I wanted to believe he had finally found a good reason to withdraw from all these dubious feats of strength, but you can’t keep a good masochist down, I always say—unless you’re wearing spiked heels. Rodney’s bravado couldn’t be contained by prudence. “I’ll do it,” he said.
I smelled a rat. It smelled like the Buttman’s minions using Rodney’s punch as an excuse to pounce upon him and rend his garment. Among other things.
“You sure you agree to this, Rodney?”
He said he was. Of course he was.
“Lenny,” I said, “I want your promise that if Rodney does accidentally hurt you, nobody retaliates.”
“Promise.”
With a couple of deep sighs, Jon and I stepped back to witness this demonstration of the miracle gut of Lenny Butts. The Buttman stood there, shirtless and sweaty, his excess poundage suspended flabbily in front of him, ready for Rodney’s punch.
BOOM! Boom probably isn’t the right sound effect. Something squishier might be better. Rodney’s arm seemed to disappear into several inches of flesh, but the Buttman was unfazed. Applause from the crowd. A look of awe from Rodney. For a brief moment he and Lenny seemed to respect each other. “Try it again,” said the Buttman.
BOOM! BOOM! Lenny’s followers sent up a chorus of oohs and aahs as the amazing belly took two punches in quick succession with no ill effects. Jon suggested that that was enough.
But it wasn’t enough for Rodney. He rared back and tried again—BOOM! And this time he got the satisfaction he’d been looking for: He hurt his hand. He squealed in pain and dropped to his knees as the crowd dispersed, laughing.
Mission accomplished.
I mentioned in a previous chapter that Shawn Coil was one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. And it wasn’t enough that he had a flair for combining outrageous humor with a deadpan delivery—in the summer of 1984 he had this Peter Brady squeak in his voice, which just kicked his humor up a notch. One day we had just finished a ten-minute water break and the guys were gravitating over to the next rows to be picked. Shawn was leaning against the bus waiting for someone when Lenny Butts walked past.
“Yeah,” bellowed the Buttman, “I been drinking since I was seven and smoking since I was eight.”
Shawn Coil looked directly at me and said in that wonderful Peter Brady voice: “The man is a saint.”
There are only three more installments in the Corn Stalks series. I’m not sure what you’re supposed to do with that information.