What We Saw by Aaron Hartzler

Tyler as Christy, Rachel, and Lindsey pile into Ben’s backseat. “Where you going?” he asks me. “I thought you were gonna drive me home.”
    â€œâ€™Sup, Pistol?” Ben holds out a fist and Will grins as he bumps back, glancing at Tyler to make sure he caught the exchange. Tyler is appropriately impressed.
    â€œMeant to text you,” I say. “We’re going to the thrift store. Can you get a ride home with Tyler?”
    â€œHe wanted a ride home with us.”
    I turn to Ben. “Sorry. Looks like I have to run carpool first. Meet you there?”
    â€œWe’ve got room.” Ben jerks his head for Tyler and Will to follow him and pops open the hatch behind the backseat. “Just don’t flip off any cops or anything. Everybody’s supposed to have a seat belt.”
    Tyler just stands there, staring. “Dude . . .”
    â€œC’mon, man.” Will elbows him and jumps in. Hurry up. Wemay never get another opportunity to ride in a varsity player’s way-back ever again.
    Will sits down on the laundry basket and Tyler crouches across from him. “Are these all the leftover rally socks?” Will’s voice contains the hushed awe of the first man to see Niagara.
    â€œAll yours,” says Ben.
    â€œReally? Won’t you guys need ’em for the tournament?”
    Ben shakes his head once. “Plenty more where those came from. Trust me.”

fifteen
    CONNIE BONINE BARELY looks up from the TV when the bell jangles over the door at Second Sands Treasures. Her husband, Willie, had three storage units packed with crap when he died in the First Gulf War. His jeep got smacked by an armored Humvee in a freak accident on a base in Afghanistan, and in a town without a Goodwill at a time before eBay, Connie smelled a goldmine.
    Using Willie’s pension, she leased an empty storefront to sell off his junk, and though she never cashed in on much of her late husband’s stuff, she has successfully cornered the market on the old clothes of anyone who’s passed on since 1992. Now most funeral arrangements include an appointment withConnie the week after the graveside service or internment. Her rusty old delivery van will show up anywhere in town to cart away the belongings of your deceased friend or loved one, free of charge. For those too overwhelmed with grief to do the job themselves, the fact that Connie will sell everything off at a small profit seems to be a fair trade.
    The people who left this stuff behind may be dead, but the smell of Connie’s store is a living thing. Mothballs from your grandma’s basement mixed with old rubber shoe soles, and long velvet drapery panels filled with cigarette smoke that can stand up on their own. It’s the scent of trash that never became treasures, left to molder for a couple decades.
    Mrs. Bonine’s hair is a bomb blast of wiry gray curls that would spill down her back if she didn’t have it all tucked up into a bright blue Buccaneers bandanna. This grooming annoys my mother. Once a year or so when Mom manages to wrestle away from Will the shoes he’s destroyed and jeans he’s outgrown, she drops off a bag of donations and huffs about why Connie won’t cut that mess once we’re out of earshot. Or at least color it, for heaven’s sake.
    Behind the counter, an old thirteen-inch black-and-white TV pulls in a grainy signal. It looks like Mrs. Bonine’s watching the news on a microwave. I imagine saliva pooling inside her down-turned mouth as she waits for the beep and am jolted back to reality by a voice I recognize. Sloane Keating gives a preview of her “full report at five” on the “Coral Sands Rape Case.” Something about those words—lined up all in a row likedominos—stops me in my tracks.
    Rachel and Christy are already picking through the racks of ancient dresses. Will and Tyler have found an old drum set. Mrs. Bonine glances over