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Chapter 8
ROSS THE FARMER
He had to tell someone or, more important, he had to actually show someone. But he couldn’t;
he just couldn’t—it was too dangerous. This conundrum gnawed at Ross. So after weeks of
deliberation he knew exactly who it would be. “I’m going to take you somewhere,” Ross said to Julia
on a late-November afternoon. “But I’m going to have to blindfold you.”
“Blindfold me?” she exulted as she jumped up from her chair, delighted by the possibility that
something kinky was about to happen. “Great!”
He clarified very quickly that this wasn’t sexual. “The blindfold is for your own protection,” he
said, worry spreading across his face. “It’s so you can never lead anyone back to where I’m going to
take you.”
Still, Julia felt a thrill as Ross slipped some black fabric over her head, then pulled tightly to
shut out any light from around her eyes. He wasn’t his usual phlegmatic self; he seemed nervous and
deep in thought. They walked in silence out of the apartment, Ross gripping Julia’s arm to help her
into his pickup truck. Ross could see everything, but Julia could only hear. There was the sound of
keys that jingled like a dog’s collar. The click of the truck’s door opening. A thump as it slammed
shut. An engine rumbled. Finally the vehicle edged forward into the darkness for Julia, daylight for
Ross.
“Where are we going?” Julia asked again as she looked around at the shadows.
“I told you,” he whispered. “It’s a surprise. You’ll see.”
Ross didn’t say another word as he drove through Austin at dusk. Julia sensed he was concerned,
so she let them sit in silence.
They had been getting along so well lately. On weekends they would head over to his parents’
house for dinner, which—unsurprisingly—was different from any family dinner she had encountered.
While many Texan kinfolk would spend mealtimes talking about football and F-150 trucks, the
Ulbrichts talked about economics, libertarian politics, and the pitiful state of society. Ross’s father,
Kirk, a soft-spoken native of South Texas, always managed to one-up Ross’s arguments by calmly
pointing out that his son’s beliefs were a tad too idealistic, and here was why. Lyn, Ross’s hard-nosed
Bronx-born mother, would step in and defend Ross’s view, supplementing his argument with her more
rigid outlook. Kirk’s goal was to teach his son to think through every side of an argument; Lyn’s was