The drive out of Kentucky took half of forever. Out my window, there was nothing to see other than an arrangement of grass pastures and curved fences that made the landscape look like a lush green puzzle. Determined to keep watch as long as possible for a shoe, I focused on the pavement ahead until I got so bleary-eyed, everything looked like a shoe to me, including the liquid shapes inside my own eyelids.

“The weigh station back there said we’re in Patakatish, Tennessee,” said Dad, trying four different ways to pronounce Patakatish. Shortly after, we passed a rickety gray barn with the words fireworks, flea market, and fruit painted across what was left of the roofing. Across the road, there was an Econo Lodge, a post office, and a Ford dealership. We must have been in downtown Patakatish.

Dad hung a Biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight into the gravel lot of Heap Big’s Powwow Fireworks Mart, Flea Market, and Fruit Stand, toppling our coffee table and dealing our stack of old magazines across the floor like cards. He pulled up between a red-and-white-striped tent and a blow-up Indian twice as tall as The Roast. I wasn’t sure if it was the fireworks, the fleas, or the fruit Dad was after.

“I’ve got a hankering for something sweet,” said Dad, parking on top of the Indian’s air supply and making him sag right across my side of The Roast. “You want something too?”

“Sure,” I said.

Then I waited, eye to belly button with the tall Indian until Dad walked back across the lot looking like the top of his head was smoking. He climbed in holding a honeydew half with one lit sparkler sticking out of it.

“The firework came with the food,” he said with a shrug, the sparkler smoking up the cab of The Roast until we both coughed. Once we’d fanned the air enough to breathe again, Dad did a fist-rub on his eyes and said, “Cass, are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

He slurped at the edge of an enormous iced coffee.

“What?” I said.

“Just over there,” he said. “By that big trash bin.”

Dad pointed his long coffee stirrer at a scattering of garbage overflow on the ground, right next to the fireworks tent. Lo and behold, there rested the filthiest, mangiest, one-and-a-half-eared bunny slipper ever.

Uck, was all I could think. I sure enough had wanted to find us a shoe and see what kind of Sway I could brew up that day as McClean’s willing and able Cassistant. But still, uck.

“Seek the Reacher, Cass! We’ve got a fluffy one off the port bow.” Dad leaned out his own window to fish the slipper in, since mine was blocked by an inflatable Indian belly. It took him five throws to hook the bunny, but the bunny didn’t want to come. So, together, Dad and I used all four hands and yanked the Reacher, all curved up under the strain, like we were catching a whale. We both almost fell backward when the thing finally pulled loose and came flying. As Dad dragged the slipper across the parking lot and dangled it up into The Roast, a family with eight kids in matching clothes stood gawking across the way. They snapped pictures of us with throwaway cameras.

With a wince, Dad unhooked the bunny, its fur all matted with paper bits from spent firecrackers. The sour-milk-and-licorice smell of the slipper gave me instant juicy jaws, like when Syd once talked me into trying his Tuna-Cruller Surprise. Soon as Dad looked into its one cloudy eye, what I knew I was thinking and what I thought my dad was thinking were definitely one and the same. Let’s throw this one back.

“You know,” said Dad, sniffing his fingertips, “I don’t recall any rule that says we have to keep the shoe.”

I would have actually said something in agreement if I hadn’t had to breathe in to make myself talk. For the moment, a grateful nod would have to do. Then, in one swift motion, Dad lifted the bunny up and out. And I just had to smile inside. Disgusting as our short time together had been, that bunny did mean something sudsy was about to happen.

“So where are we going to take the soaps this time?” I said, chewing on a piece of smoked honeydew.

“Well,” Dad said, scanning the surrounding area. “This may very well be all there is to Patakatish. Besides, I see lots of people over there at the flea market, and where there are people, there are problems. I say let’s make Sway while the sun shines.” He was already up and gathering all things green and yellow.

He grinned at me and said, “That is, if you’re ready to stand tall and reach out.”

“Almost ready,” I said, flipping my mirror down and adjusting my visor into a comfortable zeeyut-covering position.

M. B. McClean buttoned his jacket, licked his thumb, and tried unsuccessfully to bend down and wipe his smudgy golden shoe buckle, before unbuttoning his jacket and going for it a second time. I felt truly glad to see him all suited up uh-gane. If there was one thing this M. B. McClean character was good at, it was making me forget heartache for a little while.

“Anything I can help with?” Dad slid out the suitcase and the wagon with a few grunts and snorts.

“Not really,” I said, giving up and tossing the visor onto the gear shift. “But it’s all right. I’m ready.”

Me and M. B. McClean and all our necessities had to come out the driver’s side of The Roast. Suitcase, wagon, and tambourine, all present and accounted for. Since we planned on wandering through the crowd, we left the banner and table behind.

The flea market was inside a big metal building in a field behind the fireworks tent and the fruit stand. The afternoon heat sent wavy wigglies rising up off the cars parked on the grass, making the crowd in the distance look all melty.

“How will we fill the wagon?” I said. McClean pretended he was pouring his giant coffee into it.

“The fruit stand has a hose pipe,” he said. “The question is, how are we going to display our soaps for people to see?”

“I know,” I said. “We could use your belt to make a strap, and I can wear the open suitcase on the front of me.”

“Great idea,” said McClean. “It’s not like I need it to hold these pants up.”

“And can I make some soap suggestions for people this time?” I asked. “I did a lot of studying our list the other night.”

“Sure thing,” he said. “I’ll be the wagon-dragger.”

Water-gathering and suitcase-strapping made for a slow journey across the long field to the flea market, but I felt energized to be the one in charge of the magic. Once inside the building, M. B. McClean and I wasted no time putting ourselves and what was left of our Sway right out there in the midst of the shoppers. We’d made it just beyond the third booth when we heard someone call out, “Hey! Ol’ boy with the top hat! Hold up!”

McClean and I squeezed our way over to the display booth we’d just passed, where a man was barely balancing on a rocking chair to flag us down. The man wore a satiny gold exhibitor ribbon pinned to his shirt. “The name’s Roy, of Roy Biddum’s Antiques,” he said.

“Pleased to meet you, Roy. I’m M. B. McClean, and this is my partner, Cass.”

“What you got there in the case?” he said.

“Soap slivers,” said McClean.

“Magic soap slivers,” I added.

“You don’t say,” said Roy, sounding intrigued.

“Yeah,” I said. “They belonged to famous historical people. When you wash your hands with one, you become sort of like that person.”

McClean nodded along proudly. Roy Biddum squenched his lips to the side. While he seemed to be eyeballing the old brown suitcase far more than the soaps themselves, I took a moment to peruse his own merchandise. I could tell even from a short distance that his booth was filled with unscratched furniture, Civil War relics that were lots shinier than the real ones I’d seen, and framed, autographed pictures that looked like they’d been torn right out of magazines.

“Historical soap, huh?” he said, pulling a fat roll of dollar bills from his apron. “Tell you what. I’ll give you twenty bucks for the whole collection, including the suitcase. I can package them all up real nice as collector’s items.”

“Oh no, they’re not for sale,” said McClean.

“Twenty-five bucks, then.”

“No, I mean we’re not selling them. We’re giving them away.”

“Well, that makes things simple,” said Roy, with a sly smile. “Then I’ll just take them off your hands.”

He reached for the suitcase, but the suitcase and I took a giant step back.

“Sorry,” said McClean. “But we’re saving them for people truly in need of their power.”

Roy did a snide little snicker. “All right then. So tell me, what’s the oldest one you got in there?”

McClean nervously fumbled through the slivers and came up with a bumpy, creamish A L soap.

“Well, a lot longer than fourscore and seven years ago, this one was used by Abraham Lincoln.” As McClean held the soap in the air, I had a sudden flashback to that day in the kitchen when Dad showed me and Mom the soap that bore Abraham Lincoln’s likeness, the one Mom had made a wish on. Before I could take a closer look, though, Roy fwipped that sliver from McClean’s grasp and squatted at the water wagon so fast and so close the air tasted like cologne.

“Magic, huh?” He stuck his hands into the water and rubbed and scrubbed with a vengeance.

“Well then, how come there ain’t nothin’ happening?” he said louder. “How come I don’t feel no different at all?”

Roy straightened up, tossed what was left of the sliver into the dirt, and squashed it with his foot. Right away, I felt like shouting and tackling him to the ground, but I mustered just enough sense to leave that job to M. B. McClean. Unfortunately, M. B. McClean just stood there openmouthed and still, reminding me more of my old dad than ever.

“Here’s the deal, Mr. Clean,” Roy said, flapping his exhibitor ribbon like a little frayed flag. “You guys don’t have one of these, and if you don’t have one of these, then what you got ain’t welcome here.”

Roy kicked the remains of the smushed soap under a table.

“And regarding that crud you’re calling magic, my green-and-yellow friend, consider it a favor I’m doing you, keeping you from embarrassing yourself today.”

I felt sure McClean would at least have something clever to say about that, and maybe even rhyme it, but neither happened.

“Enough said,” Dad muttered. “Come on, Cass. Let’s be on our way now.”

As we bumped and scooted to turn ourselves around in the tight crowd of shoppers that had pressed in around us, all I could think was how in the world an antique dealer with a boothload of counterfeit junk had the guts to tell us that our stuff was crud. How a man selling rusty, dusty fakes for hundreds of dollars could harass us for giving real, powerful antiques away. After all, what had Roy Biddum’s ancestors passed down to him? Nothing but a sour face and bitter words.

McClean and I walked through the flea market exit with Roy still calling out behind us, “Hey! I got a soap sliver for you in my own bathtub at home! Belonged to Roy Biddum. You can have it and all the chest hairs stuck to it for only ten cents!”

Neither one of us turned to looked at Mr. Biddum again. The hateful, spitty sound of his voice alone was enough to make me wish we’d never even stopped in Patakatish, Tennessee.