We all in now? the auctioneer cried. We all done here? Ninety-one seventy-five, ninety-two? ninety-two? ninety-two? He flipped the gavel around, taking it by the handle, banged it sharply on the wood block on the counter and sang into the microphone: I sold them out at ninety-one seventy-five to — he looked at the bidder across the ring in the fifth row, a fat man in a straw hat, a cattle buyer for a feedlot, who flashed four fingers twice — to number forty-four!
Sitting beside the auctioneer the sale clerk wrote it down in her ledger, and the ringmen released them and ran in the next lot.
Well, Harold said, looking straight ahead. That’ll do.
It’ll serve, Raymond said, looking as though he too were talking to no one, talking about not even yesterday’s news, but about last week’s, last month’s.
They stayed on in their stadium seats to watch the present lot of cattle being sold, and the next lot, then they rose and moved stiffly down the steps and out of the sale barn. The yard crew and the pen-back crew had done their work and they received the cashier’s check — less the selling commission and the charges for the brand inspection, the feed, the health inspection, the insurance, and the fee that went to the meat board. The woman in the office handed the check to Raymond and congratulated them both. Raymond looked at the check briefly and folded it once, put it in his old leather purse and snapped it shut, poking the purse away in the inner pocket of his canvas chore jacket. Then he said: Well, it wasn’t too bad, I guess. At least we never lost no money.
Not this time, Harold said.
Then they shook the woman’s hand and went home.
AT HOME UNDER THE FADING SKY THEY WALKED DOWN TO the horse barn and cow lots and out to the loafing shed to check on things, and the cattle and horses looked all right. So they came back up across the gravel drive to the house. But the day’s excitement was gone now. They were tired and bleary now. They heated up canned soup on the stove and ate at the kitchen table and afterward set the dishes to soak and then removed themselves to the parlor to read the paper. At ten o’clock they turned on the old console television to catch whatever news there might be showing from somewhere else in the world before they climbed up the stairs and lay down tired in their beds, each in his own room across the hall from the other, consoled or not, discouraged or not, by his own familiar time-worn memories and thoughts.
5
THEY CAME DOWN THE PLANK STEPS OUT OF THE TRAILER into the bright sun in the middle of morning and rounded the corner in the packed dirt and arrived at the rusted shopping cart that waited like something patient and abiding among the dry cheatgrass and pigweed. They shoved it rattling away from the trailer out into Detroit, walking the cart ahead of them, headed downtown, Luther pushing, panting steadily, Betty coming along quiet beside. They walked paired up under the trees, with one of the front wheels of the cart flapping loose whenever it hit a crack in the concrete or a stone of any size, and passed through the intersection in front of a car delayed behind a stop sign and came one block more and crossed against traffic and entered at last the store at the corner of Second and Main.
The grocery was a long narrow brick-faced building running back to the alley with wood floors formed of old-fashioned tongue-and-groove oak boards that were oiled and darkened, a place fragrant and dusty and a little dim, with narrow aisles between shelves and tiers of foodstuffs.
Luther pushed the cart past the bins of apples and oranges, the cabbage heads and leaf lettuce next to the wall, his wife following behind in her loose dress. In the next aisle, beyond the fresh-butchered meat in the cooled trays, the frozen foods were displayed behind the tall glass doors. He stopped now and began to hand the cold boxes to Betty, who stacked them in the cart, and they moved forward and he took down more. Frozen spaghetti, cold pizza, boxes of burritos and meat pies and waffles and berry pies and chocolate pies and lasagna. Salisbury steak dinners. Meals of macaroni and cheese. All frozen in their bright hard vivid boxes.
He pushed on and she followed him up the next aisle, where they stopped to study the canned pop. He turned to her. You going to want something else this time? Or you going to stay with that same old strawberry?
I can’t make up my mind.
How bout some of this black cherry?
You’re getting me confused.
Maybe you want some of both of them.
Yes, she said, whyn’t you do that.
He lifted two cases of the pop from the shelf and stooped over to slide the cases onto the undershelf of the cart, his great hindquarters exposed above his gray sweatpants, and stood panting, red-faced, and yanked his shirt down.
You all right, dear?
Yeah. But them’s heavy when you got to bend over like that.
You better not have no cardiac arrest on me.
No ma’am. Not here. Not today.
They pushed on. Around the corner among the paperware and detergent, a plump woman was blocking the aisle, making up her mind about dish soap. Oh I’m sorry, she said, then looked up and saw who it was. She said no more but shoved her cart only a little out of the way.
That’s fine, missus, Luther said. I can make it okay. He squeezed his cart through, and Betty turned sideways, shuffling by. The woman stared after them until they had disappeared around the end and then stood fanning the air in front of her face.
In the next aisle they looked for some time among the various cereals. One of the store employees came by, a boy in a green apron, and Luther stopped him. Bud, what happened to that cereal with raisins in it? All them raisins in it.
Isn’t it here?
We been looking all over.
The boy searched among the shelves, bending over and looking up high. We might have some in back, he said finally.
We’ll wait for you, Luther said. Go ahead.
The boy glanced at him and pushed through the swinging doors into the back of the store. Then the plump woman rolled her cart up behind them.
Luther moved their cart to the side. He’s went out back to look for that cereal, he said.
What? she said. Did you say something to me?
He’s went out in back there to get our cereal. We’re just waiting on him.
She stared at him, she turned to look at Betty, then she walked rapidly away.
Cause they ain’t none of it on the shelf here, Luther called after her.
The boy came back and told them he couldn’t find any of the cereal they wanted.
Did you look everywhere pretty good? Luther said.
Yeah, I looked. If we have any it’ll be out here on the shelves.
But they ain’t none of it out here. We know that already. You got to have some of it in the back.
No. I looked. We must of sold it all.
Luther turned to Betty. He says they don’t have none, dear. Says they’re out of it.
I heard him.
What you want to do about it?
I was counting on a box of cereal to carry home.
I know. Only he says they must of sold it all.
The boy was watching them talk, his head going back and forth. You could buy a box of this other cereal, he said, and buy a box of raisins and put that in it. It’d be about the same thing.
Put raisins in the box, Luther said.
Put raisins in one of these other cereals, the boy said.
Right here, you mean?
No. When you get home. After you buy them and take them home.
Huh. Luther looked around. You want to do that, honey?
You decide, Betty said.
Well, the cereal’s here, the boy said. The raisins are over in aisle two in the middle on the right. If that’s what you want to do. It doesn’t make any difference to me. He turned and walked toward the checkout.