Dot (Part 2)

Dot’s father was the only one on the farm allowed near the bull. It was a simple arrangement. He trained the bull to obey and it did. For the most part.

“Or so . . . we thought,” she added. Dot’s voice had none of the boom it normally did.

Dot continued telling me the story of my great-grandfather. During an early morning in September 1935, her father walked up the back steps of the family’s farmhouse, entered the living room, and collapsed on the couch. There was not time to call a doctor. Even if there had been, he could not have been saved. There was too much blood and the nearest hospital was at least fifty miles away.

“He was gorged. No one quite knew why the bull turned on him—”

“Gorged?” I interrupted, barely grasping the word. It hung thick between us. She started to frown.

“I had been away at teacher’s college, getting my degree,” Dot explained matter-of-factly. “But the night before, I dreamed about a bull. It was a violent dream. It was going after my Dad. I woke up a little frightened, but I didn’t think much of it.”

There was a long pause.

“Strange thing is, I lived on that farm my whole life and I never dreamed about that bull until that night. I mean, I might have dreamed about Bess, but not the bull.”

“Who was Bess?” I asked.

“She was our favorite cow, so we named her. But one day she had to be slaughtered, just like the rest. In fact, we had her for dinner one night.” She spoke plainly.

“Oh, no, Grandma, you didn’t eat her, did you?” I exclaimed. This part of the story was as scary as the bull.

“Well, when you live on the farm, this is what you do. Everyone sat around the dinner table talking about her. We all said, “Oh, that Bessy, she sure tasted good!”

Dot shook her head back and giggled, snorting slightly.

She caught me cringing.

“I know, it’s a little strange,” she conceded. “But it’s what you did when you lived on a farm.”

She grew serious again and continued to tell the story of the bull.

“I woke up the next morning and the phone was ringing off the hook. I knew when I picked up the phone. I barely listened...” She cried softly. Perhaps the knowledge she had had of it in advance had only made her feel worse.

“So you knew ahead of time?” I said quietly.

“Yes, I knew.”

She continued. No one had been allowed to go in the ring, except her father, and then only when it was absolutely necessary. He never mastered that animal. The one who knew the bull best. The one who handled him every day of his life.

“Perhaps he felt the bull would be loyal to him!” she shrugged. “So unpredictable, I guess.”

Dot seemed haunted by it all. Her own story.

Previously she had told me a shortened version of the story. “This was not an uncommon way to die back then you know,” she’d say, lips pursed. She always told it in a very straightforward, stoic way.

But this story was different and more violent tonight. Dot’s ability to tell it had pained her. Her knowing had weighed on her. Her eyes searched the sky as though this celestial event going on above would somehow provide her with answers.

“The Earth’s atmosphere bends sunlight into earth’s shadow and onto the Moon. This sunlight is reddened as it travels a long way through our atmosphere, which is very dusty. That’s why the moon looks red.”

I nodded.

It was time to go in. The stars, which had seemed to disappear earlier, now twinkled brightly in the crisp night sky. The eclipse was over.

“The next one is not until the year 2000,” she said.

“Are you sure? How can you know that ahead of time?” I asked.

“Well, the astronomers at NASA know it ahead of time!” she smiled.

“Oh, but—”

“Okay,” Dot interrupted. “Go and get back in bed. It’s late!”