Brando_ Songs My Mother Taught Me - Marlon Brando [10]
The country road we lived on was named for Old Man Bradley, who presided over a pretty forty-acre farm about a mile down the road. He had two sons, Dutch and Indian. He had blackheads on his nose so big that you could have scooped them out with a soupspoon. I could never remember anything he said because I couldn’t keep my eyes off the wondrousness of those blackheads. He was missing most of his front teeth, and he must have been eighty years old, but almost every day he walked down that gravel road past our farm, paused and, if she was around, said hello to my cow, Violet. Our family always had animals, but they became more important to me as the years passed because they helped me deal with the absence of love. I used to come home from school and nobody would be home. There would be dirty dishes in the sink and piles of cat turds under the piano. The beds weren’t made, and the whole house would be unkempt and empty. My sisters were either still at school or with friends, my mother was out drinking and my father was out whoring. As a result, I sought—as I still do—affection, loyalty and friendship from animals.
One was a huge, black Great Dane named Dutchy. Every spring the meadow in front of the house became an ocean of canary-colored mustard blossoms, and when a wind came up, it was like watching a sea of rippling golden waves rising and falling with the breeze like breakers just before they pound into a reef. There was a trail through the field that led to the other side of town, and we often rode our horses along the trail three miles to the Des Plaines River. Dutchy liked to chase rabbits through the mustard field, which was nearly five feet high by late spring. She’d lose one and suddenly stop. A moment or two would pass, and then she’d leap about six feet in the air, a big, pitch-black dog silhouetted against the yellow mustard, looking to see if the mustard was vibrating in any direction. Like Nureyev, she seemed to be able to stay elevated for an extraordinary length of time. Then the chase would be on again. The sight of Dutchy seemingly frozen in midair is one of those memories imprinted on my brain that will last forever and a day. I don’t think she ever caught a rabbit, but she never stopped trying.
Besides Dutchy, I was attached to Violet, our Jersey cow. It was my job to milk her twice a day, and on some winter mornings, it was so cold she would be steaming. I’d get out of bed, put on my coveralls and galoshes and walk to the barn, where I could barely see her shrouded behind the mists of her own body heat. Usually there was a bantam rooster and a couple of hens roosting between her horns, which, when she turned her head and looked at me, made Violet look as if she were wearing an elegant flowered hat from Paris. She’d look up at me, twist her head, watch me as I came through the door and utter a friendly good morning moo.
I’ve always found animals easy to love because their love is unconditional. They are trusting, loyal and undemanding except in wanting love in return. In the summer I’d open the gate, climb on Violet and ride into the pasture. She never complained. I’d put my arms around her, kiss her and feel her return my affection. Cows have very sweet breath because of the hay that they eat, and I felt the warmth from it. In the summer there were usually a dozen or two barn cats around the farm, welcome if uninvited squatters, and they knew exactly when I milked Violet. Every morning when I went to the barn, they were waiting for me, lined up fifteen or twenty feet away. As soon as I started milking her, they got on their haunches, in a queue, and stuck their front paws out, waiting for me to squirt some milk into their faces, which I did. I