The Exchange by Toye Eskridge

The Exchange by Toye EskridgeBattalion after battalion, the towering pines stood rigid, guarding both sides of the blacktop the salesman barreled down in his cream Studebaker. The pointed hood knifed the stifling Southern air.

Wallace had never been south of Maryland before, and this lonely stretch of eastern North Carolina had begun to carve at his nerves. It was mile after mile of flat asphalt between fences of pines. Seldom did he pass a car. The last town had to have been sixty miles prior. At least, before he had hit this stretch, the landscape had been broken by scattered homes with old women under shady oaks shelling peas, farmers on rusty tractors bounding alongside fields of tobacco and corn, and even a WPA road gang, grass whips in pendulum motion.

But now the pines loomed everywhere—tall, stark, and cold. They rose branchless for seventy feet or more, just greyed bark until the very top, where sparse limbs with long, green needles jutted into the sky. The mute trees stood like toothpick soldiers, shutting him out from the light and the world, hemming him in, forcing him on. He blinked his eyes in despair as the trees zipped past; he wanted out of this wasteland, this road to nowhere.

Wallace almost missed the dirt turnout on his left, a welcome break in the tree line.  As he slowed the car, a lone gas pump peeked into view. An ailing shack sat hunched like a toad twenty-five yards behind the pump, a sign proclaiming the building a general store. Wallace applied the brakes and bumped from asphalt to the red clay of the gas station’s lot. He slowly passed the pump and parked diagonally in front of the shack. He had a half-tank left from his last fill-up, but he thought to stretch his legs, maybe buy a grape soda. 

As he turned off the ignition, Wallace noticed the large boy in overalls, barefoot, his back to him. The boy skipped around the yard, waving his arms in the air, obviously in pursuit of something. As Wallace watched, the boy turned in his direction and jumped after his invisible prey. A flutter of yellow flashed past Wallace as the butterfly bobbed and undulated, crossing the car’s double windshield and careening in the direction of the shack. Wallace even noticed its tiny brown spots.

A loud thump on his hood jolted Wallace, and he turned to see the boy had run into his car and was leaning on the hood, his face almost pressed into the windshield. Wallace gasped as he caught the boy’s face. Slanted eyes with road-black pupils, set under a wide forehead, gazed at him. An open, crooked mouth smiled at him. The boy emitted a hoarse laugh, uneven in pitch and broken with nasally intakes of breath.  He waved a frozen hand—fingers spread and tips curled—at Wallace, who weakly smiled back and managed a meek wave in return. He studied the boy’s face more intently and noticed crinkles at the edges of the epicanthic eyes, leathery cheeks, and scruffs of hair on the chin and neck. This was not a boy; this was a man about his own age. Wallace swallowed dryly and eked out another closed-lip, nervous smile. He placed the key back in the ignition.

“Petey, get away from there!” Wallace turned toward the drawled voice to see a man in dirt-splattered dungarees and a checkered shirt, sleeves rolled up, standing on the porch. He stepped down and advanced on the car, flicking his hands in a shooing motion. “G’won, now. Move.”

A lurking desire to leave tugged at Wallace, but he shook his head and swung the heavy door of his car out, then stood up in greeting. Before donning his white fedora, he ran a finger around the inside front brim. The cooler temperature outside the car felt refreshing, and, even with his unsettling encounter, he was glad he had stopped.  Maybe I can cool off some now, he thought.

“Sorry, mister,” the man said, extending an oil-stained hand. “I hope he didn’t bother you. I’m Ab Harris. I run this store. That’s my little brother, Petey. Don’t let him scare you any. He’s harmless.”

“Oh, he doesn’t bother me,” Wallace lied, his lips creaking another limp smile. He returned the man’s strong grip.  “The name is Wallace, Richard Wallace.”

Petey stood behind his brother now, hiding but occasionally peeking out, stealing furtive glances at the salesman then giggling faintly before pulling his head back out of sight.

 “Well, what can I do you for, Mr. Wallace? You need gas?”

“I just really stopped to stretch my legs, but now that I think of it, you can top her off. Don’t know when I’ll run into another gas station. I’ve never been in this area before.”

“Never?” said Harris, his hard, heavy-lidded eyes studying the salesman.

“No, never.”

An uncomfortable silence followed, and Wallace broke contact with Harris’ gaze and looked at his feet. A small nimbus cloud scudded across the sun, casting the lot into shadow, and Wallace shuddered at the chill.

“Can I have your keys? I’ll pull your car up to the pump.”

Harris started for the Studebaker. Petey left the protection of his brother and dashed to the store’s front porch, where an old woman, tall and lean, stood.  A long, coal dress made her white hair, flattened on the top and sides of her head, shine like a beacon. Wallace felt her unblinking eyes level him. The old woman stood so erect and still, she seemed to Wallace to grow out of the porch, a towering thin reed creped in funeral black. She must be six feet tall, he thought. The old woman gathered Petey in with a protective arm, her long nails clutching his bare shoulder.

“So, you said you never been in this area before,” Harris said as he pumped the gas. “You just passing through on a job or vacation?”

“I am passing through on business; I’m a salesman.”

Grinning, Harris said, “Whatever you sell must not be from around here because you sure ain’t.”

 “You got me. I’m from Connecticut, and the company I represent sells industrial air-conditioning units. I’m visiting a few plants in the area. I just go from meeting to meeting, explaining our product, answering questions and concerns, showing them our schematics.”  Wallace wondered if he should have used a word other than “schematics” for Harris’ benefit.

“Air conditioning?” Finished pumping gas, Harris moved on to cleaning the road dust from the car’s windows and body with a rag.

“Yes, air conditioning is a mechanical way to cool the air inside a building on hot days so workers are more comfortable and, thus, more efficient.  It also keeps the equipment in better shape. We think that is a solid selling point for your businesses down here, what with the hot summers.” Wallace flourished a hand in the air to indicate the thick atmosphere but noticed again the cool air. He looked up to see another charred cloud creep in from the west.

Harris polished the automobile while Wallace continued. “You know, it won’t be long before we have units small enough for the home.  You could even put one in your store there, give your customers a cool place to shop, a place to beat the heat. It would improve business.”

From the corner of his eye, Wallace saw that the woman had relaxed her grip on Petey’s

shoulder and begun drumming her nails rhythmically—up, down, up, down—against his skin.  “Uh-huh,” Harris said. “I guess being on the road keeps you away from your wife a lot.”

“Oh, I’m not married.”

“Never been? No kids?”

“No on both counts.” Wallace thrust his hands into his pockets and leaned against the pump.

“A man like you, so successful but never been married? That’s hard to believe. What are you, twenty-eight or so?”

“No,” replied Wallace with a short, flattered laugh. “I’m thirty-five.”

“Thirty-five,” Harris repeated flatly.  He went quiet again, and the only sound was the muffled brush of the rag against the car’s steel side. Wallace tapped a cigarette from its pack and mentally urged Harris on. Get me the hell out of here, he thought.

“Well, I bet your parents want you to get married, have some kids, don’t they?” Harris’s question startled Wallace like the strike of a gong, and he dropped his cigarette. He kicked it away and put the pack inside his coat pocket.

“My parents are deceased,” he replied after a bit.

Harris, who had been working on the windows on the far side of the car, stopped and walked to the hood, looking at Wallace sympathetically. “Sorry to hear that.  You got any family?”

“I have one brother who lives in Illinois, but I hardly ever see him.”

“You sound like a lone wolf.”

Wallace detected judgment in the statement, but he replied, “Guess I am.” Harris bent back to his cleaning. “Look, buddy, I’d like to get on the move. Just call it a day on the rag job and let me pay you and get going.”

“Ab!” The old woman’s yell startled Wallace, who spun to see her and Petey still on the porch.

“Excuse me,” Harris said, forcing the rag through a belt loop on his pants. He hustled to the porch.

Wallace watched the confrontation unfold.  With Harris standing on a step below the porch, the woman appeared even taller.  She pointed at Harris with one hand and patted Petey on the head soothingly with the other. Wallace heard the woman ask, “What did he say?” He could not make out Harris’ reply. A husky, brown-headed boy of about eighteen, also clad in overalls, slid out of the shadows of the front door as Harris finished talking. When Harris returned, the boy followed in his wake. The old woman and Petey disappeared into the black rectangle of the store’s door.

“May I pay and leave now?” Wallace asked impatiently as Harris and the boy approached.

“Sure, Mr. Wallace,” said Harris, then indicating the boy with a jerk of his head, added, “This is Tommy, my little cousin.” Harris grabbed the boy by the back of the neck and directed him to check the tire pressure.

“He doesn’t have to do that.” Wallace’s agitation increased. “I want to get going.”

“By the time we settle up at the register, he’ll be done. Just follow me.”

The store was a small rectangular room about fifteen feet long. The register sat plumply on the near end of a counter that ran the width of the room. With the diffused light through the dusty windows, Wallace could just make out two rows of canned goods and motor oil—and the old woman and Petey standing mutely at the far end of the counter. The woman’s hawk-like eyes trained on Wallace, and he noticed for the first time a fist-sized pendant around her neck. It was in the shape of a sun, the tip of each of its five rays bent inward. 

“That’ll be two dollars and eleven cents for the gas,” said Harris from behind the register.

Wallace paid with a five and, with a ring of the register’s keys, Harris opened the drawer and handed back the change. The metallic sound of the drawer shutting rang through the store and hung on the heavy air.

“Mr. Wallace.” The woman’s voice, strong and confident, reached across the room.  She pulled Petey with her as she approached the salesman. Wallace, stunned at first, quelled a desire to turn and run. The woman stopped in front of him, and he was surprised to find her a normal height, not the Amazon he had first thought. Some of the panic left him.

“Mr. Wallace,” she repeated liltingly. “Ab told me about how Petey here gave you a fright when he bumped into your car. The boy gets carried away sometimes, and strangers are rightly taken aback. I’d like him to apologize to you before you leave. He needs to learn. Say you are sorry and shake the man’s hand, Petey. Go on now.”

Wallace tried to politely demur, not wanting to touch the cold, contorted fingers hanging in front of him. Petey’s lolling head and uncontrolled eyes made him queasy. He doesn’t want to do this; he doesn’t even know what the hell is going on, Wallace thought. He wanted to look away but tentatively offered his hand instead.

With feral quickness, the old woman clasped the two hands together between her own, pinching Wallace’s flesh with calcified, tallow-colored nails.  The move shocked Wallace but not as much as her strength. Instinctively, he tried to jerk his hand back, but he was locked to Petey. The woman mumbled, her lips trembling guttural words he couldn’t make out, but every utterance spiked his fear. Pulling now with the aid of his free hand, Wallace broke the grip. As the woman grabbed Petey and pushed him toward the back of the store, Wallace saw Petey’s eyes. Where once listless, black pupils rolled unfocused, there seemed to flash a burgeoning energy, a pulse of control.

“Tommy’s done by now anyway.” Harris broke the silence. Wallace shook his head and turned away, stepping onto the porch then pausing to let his eyes adjust to the daylight. The rain clouds had blown out, and the sun shone hot again. He felt lightheaded. He just wanted to get back on the road and put this place—and Petey—behind him. 

Tommy appeared from behind the Studebaker and ambled toward Wallace and Harris on the porch. Wallace had the strange feeling Tommy had just been inside his car. He let it pass, wanting nothing more to detain him. The idiot was probably just playing with the gears, he thought. Brushing by the youth, Wallace got into his car, reversed it in a choke of dust and squeal of brakes, and headed back onto the blacktop.

He accelerated and did not look back at the station in his rearview mirror.  Perhaps if he had, he would have seen Tommy hand Harris the registration papers for the Studebaker he had lifted from the glovebox and point to the edge of the woods where he had placed, out of sight, the salesman’s suitcases he had taken from the trunk and the license plate he had removed from the front bumper.

Damn that old crone, Wallace thought. The image of her hands pressing his and Petey’s into a clammy mass made him shudder, hatred for the old woman mixed with pity for Petey.  Just forget it, he thought. Put it out of your mind. The pines outside whipped past. Put it out of your mind. “Put what out of my mind?” Wallace spoke aloud, panic-stricken. Oh yes, the old woman and that, that … what?  Wallace’s mind raced faster than the car, but he could not concentrate. He struggled to place the fragments of a watery memory together, but they kept dissolving, falling, slipping.

Presently, he had forgotten the whole episode, and only with great difficulty could he recall he had even stopped recently. And where am I going? A cold poleax of fear cleft him head to toe as one thought rose above all others: Who am I? I’m Richard … Wallace. Yes. That’s it. Richard … Wallace … what?

Soon the name had fled his grasp, leaving him nothing. Where am I, he thought, as the strange country ripped by. What is this? He looked around the car. Oh yes, this is a car, my car. But where am I going? This is crazy. He felt like crying. His thoughts constricting into an ever-tightening knot, the salesman knew he had to stop and think, to figure out what was happening. The wheel felt foreign in his hands, the brake a numb block. He abruptly pulled the car off the road and turned off the ignition. I’ve got to get out of here, he thought. With only the barest thread of instinct left, he opened the door and tumbled out. His hat rolled into the scrub in front of him as he scrabbled across the rock-strewn shoulder of the road, slicing his hands and face. He clambered up but fell again. Staying down, he leaned back against the car and sat there, sweating, dirty, and bleeding. As his last remnant of cognizance slipped irrevocably away, the salesman sat staring ahead, uncomprehending, unknowing, alone.  

He continued to sit, blinking rarely, slowly, as the hot sun languidly waned. A wren chirping in the distance provided the only sound. Eventually, a movement of purple and red caught by the gloaming light attracted his attention, and he smiled as it bounced and wavered in front of him. He watched it and laughed. Fumbling, he stood and chased the butterfly, disappearing into the towering pines that stood in vigil beside the road.

Toye Eskridge

Image: Butterfly with slightly ragged wings from Pixabay.com