My father slowly wiped the grease from his hands, and then he said, “Raymond, what section is the home eighty in?”
My uncle said something about not doing legal work at a party.
Dad said, “Section 14. And the lease on it comes up in March.”
Nobody at that party knew what he was talking about. I did not know, and I am his son, and I had been listening to the self-made businessman speech since I was nine years old.
Grandpa split the home place in 1998. Raymond got the buildings and the north ground and Dad got the home eighty, which is the best dirt on that farm and always has been, and the reason people forget is that Dad has never farmed a day in his life.
He leased it to his brother. One dollar a year, recorded at the courthouse, renewable every five years, signed by both of them at a kitchen table with our mother as witness.
Eighty acres of prime ground for a dollar, for twenty-seven years, to a man who owns thousands of acres and calls himself self-made in front of company.
Dad did not say the word rent and he did not threaten anything. He said the section number and the month and then he put the rag in his back pocket, and every farmer in that room did the arithmetic in about four seconds, because farmers can do that arithmetic in their sleep.
Then he said the only other thing he said. He said, “I have never once asked you for a dollar or a thank-you. But I would appreciate it if you would quit calling me your mechanic in front of my grandchildren.”
Raymond went red and did not answer.
Later, in the shop, Dad showed me the file. He has one, it is a manila folder in the drawer under the bench, and it has the lease in it and every renewal and a note our grandfather wrote in 1998 and stapled to the first page.
Dale — I gave your brother the buildings because he wants to be looked at and I gave you the ground because you do not. He will run this place and you will keep it running and only one of you will get thanked for it. Do not let that turn you. Fix his combine.
Twenty-seven years my father has been fixing that man’s combine with a note like that in a drawer.
Raymond came to the shop on a Tuesday in December. He stood there while Dad finished a hydraulic line and then he said, out loud, that he had never once done it right, and he asked to pay the lease at market.
Dad told him a dollar was fine and always had been. What he asked for instead was that Raymond come stand in the shop the next time somebody complimented his equipment and say who does the work.
He has done it twice that I know of. Badly, both times.
The lease renewed in March. One dollar, five years, same kitchen table.