"You ain't gonna find a better truck on the lot," Eric Jones said, and hitched up his pants in an unsuccessful attempt to show off the MHS Cougars belt-buckle almost hidden under his belly. "Three eighty horse power, three ten foot pounds a torque, dual 'saust, dually, posi rear-end. And she's a Ford." He had Farmer John on the ropes, blinded with bullshit; the gangly rube with one thumb through his loose suspenders, barnyard thinker, perused each item as Eric rattled them off. He looked over the chrome, the leather seats, the FM radio, and peered under the hood pretending he could really see those 385 horses, balancing his knee against the shiny bumper. All the while he nodded at Eric's spiel, and pretended not to hear him as he wiggled a cable.
A car honked. "We gotta be at the Steven's in ten minutes Frank," a woman sitting on the passenger side of a Ford pick-up hollered.
"Frank" looked up at Eric and smiled. What can you do, his face said.
My ex was the same way, Eric, having never been close to being married, said with his own.
"Tell you what, I'll hold on to this 'un for you 'till Friday," Eric said.
"I'll be back tomorrow," Frank replied, and Eric was sure he would be as he took the other man's hand in a firm shake.
Eric waved as Frank got back in his truck and drove off, the MHS Cougars sticker-covered bumper and license plate frame disappearing around a corner a moment later. He stepped behind a sepia-Technicolor conversion van ('92 LOW MILEAGE), undid his belt, exhaled, let his gut out, and swung the belt in slow circles as he walked back to his tiny greenhouse-like two room office in the middle of the corner lot of crumbling asphalt. Inside he pulled open a file cabinet and tossed the belt buckle on the pile, all emblazoned with various sports teams, political organizations of every stripe, and nearby high schools. Flopping down on the cheap blocky rectangular desk he'd scavenged from a closing private school, he leaned over and dug a small pocket knife out of the tight pocket of his tan corduroy slacks. He looked at the notches in the belt. The last available buckle hole was one he'd poked between the last original hole and the tip of the belt, and it was already stretched wide.
"Dammit," he muttered as he flipped the belt into the trash. He decided to buy a new one at the dollar store on his afternoon commute, the round trip he took from the lot to Pete's Bar and back to the lot where he slept in another conversion van (NOT FOR SALE) parked behind the office. "Get a fifty incher this time."
"Hello? Are you open?"
Eric stumbled, sat down in his desk chair, and crossed his legs to conceal his undone pants. "Can I-- Wow, uh, sorry, may I help you?" The woman standing in his doorway, head outstretched in a hesitant manner as if about to leave, only had one gorgeous slender leg in skin-tight jeans and one high, firm (probably fake) breast covered with a sweater inside his door, but it was enough to get Eric to suck in his gut and button his pants in as nonchalant a manner as possible under his desk.
"Yes, I was wondering what you could give me for a 1961 Ford Falcon?" The mention of a car put Eric's mind off the woman as she entered the office and looked around for a place to sit. He tapped a finger against his face and squinted out the window as he gestured at a folding chair opposite his own. The Falcon, though to the casual observer looked like a nice Classic Car with chrome and shiny paint, was really a low-end econobox, and its popularity with Ford aficionado was based around it not being an Edsel as well as being a simple design to work on. Eric hated people who knew cars, they never let him get more than high blue book value for anything, but the Falcon was one of the cars he could get a dumb college kid to buy for a few grand. Never underestimate the power of chrome and fins.
"So how much do you think it'd be worth?" She shifted her tight acid-washed jeans who wears those any more, she's gotta be a stripper or something on the metal seat. Eric had borrowed the uncomfortable chair from the library a few years ago. People made faster decisions when they were uncomfortable. Sometimes they bought the car, sometimes they didn't, but they never thought the deal through all the way when they did.
Eric smiled. "Trade in, about $1,500; I'll give you a grand if you're just trying to sell it. You got it- do you have the car with you today, miss...?" he said, revising his grammar to match the crystal golf ball he'd just noticed on her thick engagement ring. I might have to drop contractions with this gal.
"Jones, Sandra Jones, call me Sandy," she said and reached out her hand in the limp, quarter-turned manner of the old, or new pretending to be old rich. He did the best he could to shake it in its awkward position. Eric didn't have much associations with the cream of society, said cream purchasing their cars new through marquee dealers, and turning around to trade in the same cars to the same dealers, who in turn sold the now-used cream cars to the milk. The middle managers and managers and others gave their used cars to the independent dealers, and they in turn sold them to the employees of the managers and middle managers. And after ten or fifteen years or more of Ohio sun and Ohio rain and Ohio Department of Transportation road salt, the cars finally made their way to a little crackling blacktop lot on the corner of Main and Lincoln where Eric Jones waited with a bottle of spray-paint for the rust and a smile.
"Well, let's go take a look at it shall we?" he said, getting up and holding the door for her. Eric was used to all variety of tricks techniques and tactics, from the hail-fellow-well-met of men to the flirtations of both matrons and college coeds alike, all an attempt to get him under sticker, none aware of the real price he kept only in his head, their ignorance the last defense of his paycheck slash bar tab. Watching Sandra, or Sandy, walk however was swiftly eroding that inward wall of profit.
"So anyways, my ex, this guy I married in high school, oh my god what a mistake, he sold me this car, or actually he gave me this car? And I can't drive a stick, barely, I mean, I got it here, but I don't want to you know?" Sandra/Sandy said as she waved one hand over in halting rolling motions occasionally turning to look at Eric and interrupt his Rubenesque meditation as she walked towards the sea-foam-green Falcon parked between two of Eric's cars, a brown station wagon ('95 GREAT MILEAGE) and a white sedan with a broad spot of almost-matching spray-paint across its rear bumper.
"Not bad," Eric said. Yep, it's a Falcon. "Mind if I take a look at the engine?"
"No problem," she said and leaned over to pop the hood, much farther than she needed. "Are you closing soon?" she said as she stood and flipped her hair.
Eric looked up from and quickly covered the empty wrist he'd held up to be caught looking at as she'd faced him again. "Hmm, looks good." He leaned over and gave the carburetor a wiggle. "Alternator is in pretty good shape. Let me take a look at the exhaust..."
Sandra stretched hers arms out, and he ran his hand along the radiator intake as he pretended not to notice. Yanking it back he hit his head on the low hood as he stood up. "Not too shabby," Eric said as he ignored his burnt hand and the egg he was sure protruded from his head. "Just need to step back in the office for some paperwork, forms, generalized stuff really." For a moment as he spoke he thought Sandra's face changed; her eyes narrowed, the luscious apple-red lips shrunk in a frown and pursed as if to respond, then just as suddenly her visage was once again the smiling, vibrant coquette.
"Sure," she replied through a smile of perfect teeth.
Back in the office he handed her the forms and his favorite pen, a Montblanc (spelled Mount Blanc on the clip) he had found in an old Cadillac. "Keep it," he said as he held it out with a magnanimous smile. "I'm keeping the car, so fair's et cetera, et cetera."
"Thanks," she said, not looking at him.
"I'll, uh, need your drivers license too," Eric said, almost stammering. She took it out and handed it to him without a glance in his direction, remaining focused on the paperwork in front of her. "Thanks," he said. She murmured something unintelligible.
Eric closed the door of the storeroom nee restroom, still in service as the latter, and fumbled for his cell phone. Visions of a grateful Ms. Jackson floated through his head as he dialed.
"DMV," a robotic sounding voice said in his ear, and he almost dropped the card, catching it with a hasty stoop.
"Steve, my man," he said.
A momentary pause, some shuffling. "Eric Jones you piece of shit," the man's voice, no longer the bored drone but harsh whisper of a person using a business phone for other purposes.
"What? What is this?" Eric continued. "Look I got a fast name I need checked out, wanna speed the process up for a special client."
"Yeah, you sleaseball, bet she's a redhead."
"Blond."
"I ain't, helping you, no more. That piece of shit--" he paused, then continued in a lower voice as if someone had raised an eyebrow at him, "That piece of shit car you sold me has been in the shop three times in three weeks. Fuck you."
"Steve, Steven, bring it in, and I'll have my mechanic fix it up for you. Twenty bucks." The mechanic being a crackhead who would do three hours of work for ten bucks, Eric was prepared to make the sacrifice to keep a customer. "I swear, you'll have it back the next day if you bring it in tomorrow."
Silence.
"Steve?"
"Fuck you. Fine. What's the name?"
"Sandra Jackson, license number DO45601."
"Got it, ah... Hoo-ee."
"See why I'm going out of my way here?" Eric said, flipping the card in the air.
"Yeah, I can see that, the orange jump-suit really brings out her eyes."
Eric choked a little, and whipped around to face the closed door. "Excuse me?"
"Sandra Charmane Jackson, currently serving twenty-five to life for the murder of her estranged husband in Malta Ohio over the sale of a classic--"
Eric held his hand over his face. "1961 Ford Falcon sedan with sea-foam green paint."
"I bet it looks real nice in your lot."
"I bet you're enjoying this more than you should."
"Maybe. Tell you what, I'll do you a favor and call the police if you fix my car for free. And don't you take it to that crackhead that hangs around the 7-11 neither."
"Okokok," Eric hissed. "Just get them here."
"Eric?" a husky voice called from just the other side of the storeroom door.
Shit, he mouthed. "Alright then, thanks for the help streamlining that request buddy,"
"I'm still kicking you in the shin the next time I see your short, fat ass," Steve's voice shouted out of Eric's phone as he snapped it shut. He scanned the shelves of the store room for a weapon, came up empty, then grabbed some blank paperwork from a shelf over the toilet. So armed, he turned and opened the door.
"Gonna need you to fill out just a--"
Her smell caught his nose before he could hand her the sheaf of papers; she had sprayed herself with something cheap but intoxicating while he'd been preoccupied. She held her arm across the doorway level with his eyes, and they traced their way along it to her thin neck and smooth-curved chin.
"Need, uh, to fill these... out?" he said and held up the papers, unable to look up.
She stepped forward, putting one finger on his chest and forcing him to stumble back against the wall across from the door, and leaning over him as she put one hand on the wall above his shoulder.
"Now, Eric?" she said. "I was wondering if I could get cash instead of a check today. I'd be really appreciative."
"I, uh, suppose I could work something out," he stammered. "I'd have to run to the ATM though." He wondered if there were any wildebeests that had the misfortune of being attracted to lions.
"That'd work," she said and leaned over.
A siren blared a short two-toned burst. She whipped her head towards the open door, then snapped back to him, her sultry replaced with a trollish scowl. "You little shit," she snarled. Two things worked in Eric's favor as she swung at him with a curled hand, his low stature and his experience dealing with violence within the confines of his height. He dove forward under her swing in an attempt not be trapped in a small room with a mad-woman rather than as any sort of attack, but due to her stance ended up plowing his compact frame neatly into her gut, bowling her head over spiked heels. He stumbled forward, inadvertently catching her chin with his knee as he scrambled for the front door.
Two police cruisers sat with spinning lights in front of the office and another waited parked on Main street, their occupants out and ready as a short fat man in a cheap suit ran out of the building and slammed the door behind himself. "She's in there," Eric shouted, pointing at the door behind him. Two police officers ran up and another ran around the back side of the building. Cursing and the sounds of a struggle erupted from inside, a crashing chair followed by a clatter and what Eric was certain was his stash of belt buckles alongside numerous "Pigs!" and "Cocksuckers!", then a soft crack and the sizzle of discharged electricity. The officer who'd ran around the backside walked back to the front just as her compatriots were carting out the shuffling and dazed Sandra Jackson, whose previous beauty queen-looks were now sharing the stage of her face with a off-kilter blond wig and a black eye. She managed to wake up by the time they'd dragged her to the car, and she began shouting as they tossed her in the back.
"You little fucking cocksucker! You fucking faggot! I'll fucking kill you, you fat piece of shit," she screamed as she seemed to try to crawl onto the rear window shelf of the sedan. "Ow! Let go you asshole," she screeched as one of the officers tried to pull her back down.
Eric watched as the cruiser rounded a downtown corner then turned his attentions to the officer taking his statement. "So can I interest you in a car? We can discuss terms over dinner," he said, trying to see what color her eyes were behind her large sunglasses.
"Sir, I have a taser," she replied without looking up from her clipboard.
"Just checking," he said, putting his hands up in surrender. She continued writing. Eric put his hands in his pockets, his jacket billowing in an Autumn breeze as he stared at the long shadows his cars made on the pavement. "Just checking."
