You weren't supposed to be depressed in the summer. Summer was all about the blue sky and the green grass and having a good time. You weren't supposed to feel sorrow creeping into your soul, like it was destroying all the happiness you'd ever felt, like it was taking away something wonderful, something that had just begun....

He walked down the alley and through the warehouse. Stepping into the shop, he saw Mike behind the counter, paging through a three-ring binder. "Good morning," he said, and Tyler summoned the best response he could mutter.

He stepped into the bathroom and turned on the faucet. As his water bottle filled, he pictured Paul's and Amy's pompous faces. They'd named their daughter Rachel Faith-My-Joy, but didn't they want her, like, to have joy? And what was Christian's middle name? Don't-Play-Cards? Christian Obey-Your-Parents Matthews?

"Well," Mike said, as Tyler stepped back into the shop, "this is your last day of teenagerhood. What are you going to do with it?"

"I don't know." He took a sip, and felt the water drain down his throat. "What I'm not going to do is see my girlfriend. That's for sure."

"Did she break your heart already?"

"No, it's not her. It's her parents."

He checked the time, and then went to the door and wrenched the lock. Flipping around the OPEN/CLOSED sign, he turned back to his uncle. "Is that really in the Bible, by the way? That a man shall not lay with another man?"

"Yeah," Mike said, "it is, but no one really knows.... Well, first of all, we're supposed to have a separation of church and state in this country. And secondly, no one really knows what the Bible says, because it's been translated so many times. And King James took out what he didn't like and changed what he felt like changing. And even, like, Ivy League professors try to figure out what it really means. And the world was quite a different place back then. There was actually a fear of running out of humans, so they wanted everyone to marry someone of the opposite sex and have as many children as possible. And no one agrees with everything the Bible says anyway. I mean, the Bible says that women shouldn't braid their hair. It says that people should be put to death if they work on Saturday."

Tyler laughed. "Really?"

"Yeah, it's in there."

"So how do you know.... How do you know anything?"

"I don't know," Mike said. "Well, maybe that's the point. To question."

Tyler went back to the warehouse, just as Jen was walking in and setting down her stuff. "Good morning," she said, and Tyler repeated her words. The speaker crackled on the wall, and he went to see what was needed.

He tore off the receipt and read the order – looked like someone needed sheep feed driven out to their farm. He walked to the table and asked, "Hey, where's Beaver Dam? Is that a place?"

"Yeah," Jen said. "Take 67 down to 150, and turn right on Highway F."

"Okay."

He went back to the shop, looked at the receipt and asked for the keys. Not a lot of people seemed to have sheep – it was usually cows or horses or chickens or pigs. Back in the warehouse, he measured fifty pounds into a sack and heaved it onto his shoulder.

Outside in the alley, he dumped the sack into the truck. Checking the GPS thing on his phone, he got in and started the motor. As he drove out of town, he flipped on the radio, and started to think that maybe country music wasn't that bad after all. Maybe it just took some getting used to....

He turned onto the highway, and drove past a field of tall sunflowers. Their brown centers and yellow petals fluttered in the wind. They were nice and everything, but why plant so many of them? Was it some weird art project? Then he remembered that you could buy sunflower seeds at the store. In the snack aisle. And they had to come from somewhere....

He turned onto Highway F, and looked for the right mailbox. He saw it, and pulled into a gravel driveway. The house looked sort of ramshackle – like it hadn't been upgraded since the 1940s. Past a few trees and a septic tank, he came upon a barn, and a guy waiting at a fence. Tyler hit the brakes, got out of the truck and called, "Hey, I got your order."

"Thanks, just set it near the fence."

He lifted the sack, took a few steps and dropped it to the ground. A couple of sheep – sheared for the summer – stood in the barnyard. A girl, who looked about ten, was climbing the slats of the fence. She was barefoot, and looked like she hadn't bathed in a really long time. Her hair was a tangle of curls, and mud was caked up and down her legs. The sheep made sheep noises – it really did sound like "baa," just like in the nursery rhymes. A little lamb stepped out of the barn, and stumbled to its parents.

"Do they have names?" Tyler asked. "Or are they just sheep?"

"They have names," the girl said. "That's Cotton and that's Cloud and that's Daisy."

"Can I pet them?"

"Yeah."

He reached over the fence, and ran his hand across the nearest animal. So that's what wool felt like when it wasn't a coat or a sweater.... The sheep's tail swished back and forth, and its ears flattened against its head.

"Well," Tyler said, "thanks for your business," and went back to the truck.

As he drove back to town, he rolled down his window, and smelled a grassy scent. Stopping at a fork in the road, he unscrewed his water bottle. The sky was impossibly blue, and there wasn't a human in sight. Tyler decided that if he ever did become a farmer, sunflowers were what he would grow... and maybe he'd have a few sheep. 

He got back to work and pulled into the alley. His phone rang, and he saw the word Grandmama on the screen. He tapped it and read: I'm off to the store. What kind of cake and ice cream do you want?

Tyler thought for a minute, and then answered. Vanilla cake chocolate ice cream. He left the truck and went back in.

************

When he got home that night, he closed the door and looked at his phone. He tapped Rapunzel's name and typed: Are we still allowed to talk? He went to the kitchen to see his grandma at the stove, stirring something in a pot. "Well," she asked, "how was your last day of being nineteen?"

"It was okay." He opened the refrigerator door, and closed it again. He opened the freezer to see a giant carton of ice cream. "I talked to your mama," she said. "I guess they'll be here tomorrow."

"Okay."

He went back to the living room, picked up his phone and saw a blank screen. Marigold sat on the couch, and he scratched her furry head. She darted away, and he thought, I can't even get the cat to care. His grandma's Bible sat on a shelf, and he picked it up and flipped through it. Maybe if he started reading tomorrow, he could actually get through the whole thing by the time he turned twenty-one.

He set the Bible back and lay down on the couch. He grabbed the remote and flipped through the channels, and then looked at his phone. His grandma called that dinner was ready, and he stood up and stretched. He went to the kitchen and pulled out a chair.

"Well, when you wake up tomorrow, you won't be a kid anymore."

"Yeah, I guess not," Tyler said, and spooned food onto his plate.

"Maybe you should start saving up for a car."

"And like a house and a future and stuff?"

"Mm-hmm. Instead of just buying...."

"Game and clothes and music?"

When dinner was over, he went back to the living room, and re-checked his phone. He pictured Paul and Amy Matthews, in their big Victorian house, just finishing dinner. Probably praying eight times a day, and telling Rachel who she could and couldn't call. And maybe they'd really messed up Christian... maybe he had such a lack of friends because of their stupid standards.

A few DVDs sat on a shelf, and he picked one up and pried it open. Well, I'm going to watch The Wizard of Oz, motherfuckers. He set the disc in the player, and sepia-toned titles burst onto the screen.