Peanut butter, instant mashed potatoes, EZ Serve Liver Loaf, jars of tamales. Dale scans the shelves glumly. Not much has sold lately, with the exception of breakfast cereal and mayonnaise. It’s hard to know what people are going to buy from month to month; he is never sure just what to stock. This month’s mayonnaise might be next month’s root beer. Last month it was canned baked beans that everyone seemed to want. He makes a note to get more Waffelos and Cocoa Hoots, wondering if it’s the cereal people are after or the giveaways inside, the little stickers, toys, and comics that have started to come with the sugary stuff. No one’s picked up any Shredded Wheat.
Dale shifts his weight from the ball of one foot to the other and drags on his cigarette. His knees hurt from crouching, and his nostrils burn with the lingering scent of the Lysol he used earlier to mop the floor tiles, which suddenly beneath the soggy strands of yarn became again the hopscotch squares they were for Tobe ten years ago. That’s been happening with a lot of things, since the letter arrived—the squeegee not a squeegee but the tool that Tobe as a boy liked best, the oil drum outside is instead the horse Tobe used to ride.
Dale looks toward the door as a beam of headlights sweeps briefly through the store; a vehicle has pulled into the station. The army men, he thinks. Finally they have come with the news. The driver parks beside the pump, and when the headlights go off Dale sees that it isn’t a military or an official-looking vehicle at all, but a boxy Bantam light truck similar to their own, with headlights perched on the wheel hubs and a small cargo bed covered by a canvas tarp. Little differences make Dale think it’s maybe a newer model than theirs: the hood is more compact; the rear wheel fenders are dressed up in chrome. Benny jogs across the lot from his own truck and leans down to the open window, and when he has gone around to the pump on the truck’s other side, the driver’s door opens and a man climbs out.
At the sight of the man, the dog begins to bark from the shadows by the store. Dale had forgotten about the dog. His bark is muted through the glass of the store door, but it’s a deep, chesty sound that Dale finds satisfying. He’s never cared for yappers. The driver starts to walk toward the store and the dog runs out from the shadows, into the ring of light cast by the flickering lamp above the pumps, barking and circling. Dale stands up, the clipboard still in his hand, and goes outside.
The heat is staggering. It has the same effect upon Dale, stepping into it, as he remembers bitter cold had when once he visited Chicago in wintertime; it momentarily takes his breath away. He tosses his cigarette onto the dirt and walks toward the pump, waving the clipboard at the dog and shouting reprimands as if it were customary, as if the dog were his. “Hey!” he yells. “Settle down, now. Settle! Hey!”
“It’s all right,” the man calls out. He squats down and holds out his hand for the dog to sniff. “He’s all right,” the man says again, as Dale approaches.
“Ain’t all right,” Dale says. “Can’t have him scaring off customers, now.”
“Don’t have enough gas for a lion to scare us off.” The man stands. He’s wearing slacks, a white dress shirt, thin black suspenders, and a loosened tie. He holds a snap-brim hat, which he places on his head. “Store closed for the night?”
“Never quite closed,” Dale says. He regards the man, then shifts his gaze toward the highway at an approaching car, the muffler busted from the sound of it. The car slows as it passes, as if it might stop, but it doesn’t. Dale watches the single working taillight fade down the highway along with his own bitter hope. He half laughs to himself; who would hope what he is hoping for?
Dale turns only when the red pinprick of taillight has disappeared into the darkness. “Come on in,” he says. He leads the man toward the store and ushers him inside, goes behind the counter, and sets his clipboard down. Out the window, he sees that the dog is still standing where they left him in the middle of the lot, rigid and alert, eyes trained in the direction of the store as if he were watching the man through the glass. Dale himself looks over at the man, who stands before the cooler, considering his options. He chooses a Double Cola and brings it to the register, setting the bottle on the counter as he reaches into his pocket for coins. “How much do I owe you?” he asks.
“Dime.”
The man puts two nickels on the counter. “And the gas?”
“Pay for the gas ouside,” Dale says. He slides the coins across the laminate and scoops them into his other hand. “Year’s that Bantam?” he asks, gesturing toward the window with his head as he drops the coins into the till.
“Forty-one, I believe.”
“Got a thirty-seven been running rough. Can’t rightly figure out why. It’s not the camshaft.” He frowns. “Spark plugs, maybe, even if they look OK.” He sniffs. “Yours run good?”
“Far as I know.” The soda hisses as the man removes the cap. His eyes travel to the window. “Truck belongs to the boss.”
Dale follows his gaze. He hadn’t realized that there was a passenger, but now he sees a second man, dressed much like this one, but older, balding, and stout. He’s gotten out of the pickup and is looking into the cargo bed.
“Portable transmitter back there,” the man explains. “That’s mostly what the truck’s used for.”
“Portable transmitter?”
“For remote broadcasts—football games, fires, stump speeches, and other such events.”
“So y’all are radiomen.”
“KVOL, out of Lafayette. We’re headed to St. Martinville. Covering the execution.”
Dale wonders how you cover an execution on the radio. Seems to him there’ll be as little to hear as there will be for old Art to see.
“Well,” the man says. “Obliged to you.” He nods at Dale and crosses to the door, where he pauses. “We’ll be on KVOL and KVCC,” he says. “Tune in.”
The entry bell clatters as the door closes, and as Dale watches the man cross the lot to the truck, he thinks, of tuning in, that he probably won’t.