A West Texas girl makes a memorable trade

I was talking to my writing group tonight about recording family stories and I remembered this little fiction tale I had posted on Medium. This is one “inspired by true events” told to me by my mother. She did trade the eggs for magazines, but that’s the only part of this story that’s true. The rest is a more colorful tale I’ve filled in. I think she would have approved of the changes.

Bad Egg

Sherry Corker stared at the tilting stack of cardboard boxes lining her mother’s closet. They’d already cleared out the kitchen, boxing dented pans and mismatched glassware to tote off to the Goodwill. Her mother fluttered in the living room, circling the floor and saying her own goodbyes to the home she’d lived in for over forty years. Sherry had finally convinced her mom to move into a retirement community near her home in Dallas.

“What do you think she’s stashed here?” Sherry’s patient husband, Dave, asked.

“No idea. Could be anything from half-filled books of Green Stamps to Dad’s old boxers. Mom never liked to throw stuff out when she thought she might find a use for it later.”

Sherry pulled at the tape holding the topmost box closed. A puff of dust brought on a sneezing fit. When she’d settled down, she lifted the flap of the box and peered inside. “Well. I’ll be damned.”

“What is it?” Dave craned to see inside the closet.

“Nothing important.” She held out a crinkled and yellowed magazine. “Modern Farm Life. Look at this, she saved every damn one.”

Sherry shook her head, lost in memories of her West Texas childhood. She’d grown up poor, but never really noticed because her close friends were all the same girls in homemade dresses and hand-me-down jeans. They had fathers who never could wash the stink of the oil fields from their clothes and mothers who could stretch a chicken dinner like Jesus feeding the five thousand.

Sherry’s family — mother, father, and her older brother Ed, had it a little better than most. Her mom kept chickens, and they had a garden that kept them in fresh vegetables. But there was little money for extras.

The day the traveling salesman came by, sixteen-year-old Sherry lay in the front yard, sunning on an old quilt and sipping on a glass of strawberry Kool-Aid. The nearest neighbor was more than a mile away, so Sherry felt sure no one would see her loosen the straps of her swimsuit top. She stretched out face down on the quilt, burying her face in the soft cotton and enjoying the warmth of the sun on her bare back. The sweet scent of coconut tanning lotion drifted through the air.

A cloud of dust heralded the stranger’s arrival. He pulled his car to a stop in the dirt drive in front of the house. Dust settled on the Mustang’s body — turning the jet-black paint to a smoky gray.

“Hello there!” The stranger stood next to Sherry’s quilt, his shadow blocking the sun.

Sherry clutched her bikini top and scrunched up a fistful of quilt as she sat up. Blinking, she studied the man. He looked younger than Sherry’s dad, but older than Mr. Bradford, the junior high math teacher Sherry had a crush on. The stranger’s hair was the soft greyish brown of mouse fur. A cowlick stood up at the crown of his head. Yellow sweat stains circled the underarms of his white cotton shirt. He had a leather satchel slung across his shoulder.

“Your folks home?” The man took a toothpick from the pocket of his shirt and turned to study the front of the house before swiveling back to smile at Sherry. He moved the toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other.

Sherry stood, gathering the quilt in front of her. “My mom’s inside. You can knock on the door I guess.”

She went around the back of the house, and after she’d slipped a large t-shirt on over her bathing suit Sherry crept into the kitchen, where she could hear her mother in the living room, talking to the stranger standing on their front porch.

“I’m sorry, we don’t have it in our budget to spare for magazines.” Sherry’s mother had one hand on the door, and she leaned partway out. The stranger smiled over her mother’s shoulder as Sherry strolled up.

“I understand. These can be hard times for folks. I work on commission, so I know how it is.”

“You’d have better luck in town, I think.” Sherry’s mother moved to close the door. The stranger put a hand on the jamb.

“Town folks aren’t interested in the things we have in here.” He reached into the satchel and drew out a magazine. “Like I mentioned, here’s a whole wealth of information for folks like you, tips to make the most of what you have. You can pay monthly.”

Sherry’s mom took the magazine and flipped through it. The colorful cover pictured a man in a straw hat, riding on a tractor. A tow-headed boy sat on his lap. Her mother stared at the magazine the same way she looked over the dresses she couldn’t afford at Beall’s department store. She thrust the magazine at the salesman. “Can’t do it and that’s that.”

“I’m sorry to see you let down like that,” the man said. “Tell you what, I’ll trade for it.”

“Trade?”

“Whatever you got.” The man’s gaze met Sherry’s. She stepped behind her mother and backed away.

“Eggs?” Sherry’s mother lowered the magazine. “How about a dozen fresh eggs?”

“Deal.” The man nodded to the magazine. “And you can keep that one.”

“Sherry, run and fetch a dozen eggs. There’s carton in the pantry you can use.”

She’d gone a half-dozen steps to the coop when Sherry remembered the box of bad eggs her mom had set aside that morning. They’d throw them out later, but her mom had forgotten them after she’d sorted them and now they waited on the back stoop. Carefully, Sherry placed a dozen of the bad eggs into the carton. He’d never know the difference, not until he got to where he could crack one. By then he’d probably just think they’d gone bad in the heat.

When Sherry got back to the living room, her mother sat in a recliner, flipping through the magazine. The salesman was nowhere in sight.

“Take those eggs out to the man.” Her mother waved Sherry out the front door.

Outside, the stranger leaned against the front fender of his Mustang. Sherry held the eggs out to him. He took the carton and tossed it into the front seat of the car, then closed the door.

“You smoke?” He offered a cigarette to her, then laughed and stuck it in his mouth. “Just kidding. How old are you anyway?” Striking a match, the stranger cupped his hands against the wind and lit his cigarette.

“I’m old enough, I guess.” Sherry tugged at the hem of her t-shirt, pulling it down to the tops of her thighs. She shivered, both thrilled and frightened at her boldness.

The salesman stared at the house, then motioned Sherry closer. “Old enough, but I bet you never been kissed.”

The man’s lips tasted like ash. His breath stank of onions. When he tried to thrust his tongue into her mouth, Sherry twisted away and wiped his spit from her chin while he laughed at her. She stood in the yard while he drove off, the Mustang growing smaller and smaller until all that was left was a puff of dust on the horizon. She grinned, thinking of when he’d crack the first of those rotten eggs.

The first magazine arrived the next month, and every month after that, for almost twenty years.

THE END