uses for their reading material, but in the interest of propriety left the thought unexplored.
Two more miles yielded five houses and one sale. By now I had turned left and was riding north. I found a rambling, ranch-style house with a new truck parked in front. The lady invited me into the air-conditioning for a drink. I shuffled across olive-green shag carpet into a paneled den where a huge console color television blared the
Dialing for Dollars
movie. I watched a few minutes while she dug around in her purse. She gave me fifty cents and told me to keep the change.
Half a mile down the road I came upon a decaying shack flanked by a dirt yard in which skeletal dogs scratched indifferently. A rusted-out Depression-era pickup jutted from the waist-high weeds in the backyard. With shaking hands, a frowzy man in overalls fumbled a quarter from an ancient coffee tin to buy a paper I suspected he couldn’t even read. I thanked him as he absently scratched at the gray stubble on his chin, his smile resembling a rotting picket fence in front of a haunted house. I recognized a couple of scrawny girls from school peeking around the porch, their ears poking through stringy hair. In the backyard a kid was perched in a rusted metal lawn chair, amusing himself by shooting flies off the table with a BB gun.
This incongruous juxtaposition of affluence and poverty repeated itself as I inched through the sand in search of customers. After what seemed like an eternity of pedaling through the Sahara, interspersed by few houses and even fewer sales, I discovered a branch of the road headed back toward the highway. I entered it cautiously, fearful it might be a mirage, but the sand on it was as real as the
Grit
in my pouch and my teeth.
About a half-mile before the highway I discovered a mobile home surrounded by numerous vehicles in varying stages of assembly and degrees of rust. A carport of impressive height housed a tractor rig with “Ray’s Trucking” painted on the side. I hardly needed the sight of Darnell up to his elbows in the hood of a mottled 1952 Ford pickup to realize where I was.
“Hey,” I called. Darnell looked up, squinting through greasy hair and greasier glasses. “Think your mom wants to buy a paper?”
“Sure, doll, why not?” He nodded toward the trailer. His mom was a short, wide, genial woman who bought a paper and then talked to me for thirty minutes. Since Darnell’s dad occupied himself driving, sleeping, or working on the truck, she was starved for conversation and would use any ruse to trap a victim. I noticed Darnell stayed well out of range, working on the motley collection of rust and grease that comprised his truck. I didn’t mind. I was practically dehydrated, and the cookies and Cokes flowed along with the monologue. However, after the first year of my route, I avoided selling her papers around Christmas because she insisted I have a piece of her fruitcake. It had a half-life of five thousand years, inside or outside the stomach.
I left the Ray estate rested and well provisioned for the final miles to my house. Being highway miles, they were inconsequential compared to my ordeal by baking on the sandy back roads, and I sailed along, glorying in the higher density of houses and greater cold-call-to-sale ratio that seemed to be directly proportional in proximity to the highway. In no time I was lounging in the Fortress of Solitude with a keg of iced tea, listening in quiet reflection to a poignant blend of “The Marriage of Figaro” and “Your Cheatin’ Heart.”
After paying for the stock, my take came out to $2.75, including tips, and I estimated I had traveled seven miles in four hours, mostly on dirt roads. This worked out to about seventy cents an hour, or forty cents per mile. While the experience had afforded me an excellent lesson in capitalism, it was hardly a resounding success, even by my modest standards. The situation called for reflection. I sipped iced tea and listened to the
Two more miles yielded five houses and one sale. By now I had turned left and was riding north. I found a rambling, ranch-style house with a new truck parked in front. The lady invited me into the air-conditioning for a drink. I shuffled across olive-green shag carpet into a paneled den where a huge console color television blared the
Dialing for Dollars
movie. I watched a few minutes while she dug around in her purse. She gave me fifty cents and told me to keep the change.
Half a mile down the road I came upon a decaying shack flanked by a dirt yard in which skeletal dogs scratched indifferently. A rusted-out Depression-era pickup jutted from the waist-high weeds in the backyard. With shaking hands, a frowzy man in overalls fumbled a quarter from an ancient coffee tin to buy a paper I suspected he couldn’t even read. I thanked him as he absently scratched at the gray stubble on his chin, his smile resembling a rotting picket fence in front of a haunted house. I recognized a couple of scrawny girls from school peeking around the porch, their ears poking through stringy hair. In the backyard a kid was perched in a rusted metal lawn chair, amusing himself by shooting flies off the table with a BB gun.
This incongruous juxtaposition of affluence and poverty repeated itself as I inched through the sand in search of customers. After what seemed like an eternity of pedaling through the Sahara, interspersed by few houses and even fewer sales, I discovered a branch of the road headed back toward the highway. I entered it cautiously, fearful it might be a mirage, but the sand on it was as real as the
Grit
in my pouch and my teeth.
About a half-mile before the highway I discovered a mobile home surrounded by numerous vehicles in varying stages of assembly and degrees of rust. A carport of impressive height housed a tractor rig with “Ray’s Trucking” painted on the side. I hardly needed the sight of Darnell up to his elbows in the hood of a mottled 1952 Ford pickup to realize where I was.
“Hey,” I called. Darnell looked up, squinting through greasy hair and greasier glasses. “Think your mom wants to buy a paper?”
“Sure, doll, why not?” He nodded toward the trailer. His mom was a short, wide, genial woman who bought a paper and then talked to me for thirty minutes. Since Darnell’s dad occupied himself driving, sleeping, or working on the truck, she was starved for conversation and would use any ruse to trap a victim. I noticed Darnell stayed well out of range, working on the motley collection of rust and grease that comprised his truck. I didn’t mind. I was practically dehydrated, and the cookies and Cokes flowed along with the monologue. However, after the first year of my route, I avoided selling her papers around Christmas because she insisted I have a piece of her fruitcake. It had a half-life of five thousand years, inside or outside the stomach.
I left the Ray estate rested and well provisioned for the final miles to my house. Being highway miles, they were inconsequential compared to my ordeal by baking on the sandy back roads, and I sailed along, glorying in the higher density of houses and greater cold-call-to-sale ratio that seemed to be directly proportional in proximity to the highway. In no time I was lounging in the Fortress of Solitude with a keg of iced tea, listening in quiet reflection to a poignant blend of “The Marriage of Figaro” and “Your Cheatin’ Heart.”
After paying for the stock, my take came out to $2.75, including tips, and I estimated I had traveled seven miles in four hours, mostly on dirt roads. This worked out to about seventy cents an hour, or forty cents per mile. While the experience had afforded me an excellent lesson in capitalism, it was hardly a resounding success, even by my modest standards. The situation called for reflection. I sipped iced tea and listened to the
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