By Jordan Upton
The rain beat down steady, the same as it had for days. Heavy grey clouds cast a pall over town. Great flat plains that once grew tobacco turned to mud pits. Mobile homes which already had leaky roofs and slumped, saggy floors grew more leaky, slumped, and saggy. An old pick-up coated in clay and mud pulled into the strip mall parking lot. The driver was a man with deep-set eyes, a weathered face, and days-old stubble. He parked outside of Solid Gold Pawn and killed the engine. He got out of his truck and pulled his hood over his head, then walked to the bed of the truck and lifted the tarp that stretched across. A flood of rainwater spilled on the ground as the tarp flipped back. Water soaked through his boots, sunk into his socks. He grabbed a collapsible baby stroller from the truck bed and put it under one arm while the other pulled the tarp back into place. The sound of the rain and thunder drowned out the constant buzz of the pawn shop’s neon sign.
An electronic bell chimed as the man pulled the front door open and stepped inside. He stood at the entrance and pulled down his hood, shook dry the rain from his head and hair. Puddles of water formed at his feet. He stomped his muddy boots on the doormat.
“Evening,” a man behind the counter said. “Coming down right good out there, ain’t it?”
“Sure as hell is.”
The store was small. There were a few shelves on the walls cluttered with items. Guitars were displayed in the windowfront. A long glass counter extended across the back wall that held more expensive things: jewelry, small electronics, guns. The wood floor was dingy, covered in years of scuff marks and water stains. The man behind the counter sat on a wooden stool at the register. He had been reading a paperback book and now looked over the rim of his glasses to greet the customer.
“What can I do for you?”
“Got some stuff I’m trying to get rid of.” The customer walked towards the counter and put the stroller on the glass.
“Brand new,” he said. “Still got the tags on it.”
The man behind the counter examined the stroller, turned it over, looked down his glasses at the price tag: one hundred and eighty-nine dollars.
“Never used it,” the customer said.
The shop owner raised his eyebrows.
“Never used it?”
The man slowly shook his head. Water droplets fell from his thick black hair and dripped from the tip of his nose. He wiped his face with an open palm, shook off the water from his hand.
“I got one of them folding cribs in the truck, too. Same brand. I can bring it in if you want.”
“We ain’t the type of place that normally takes this kind of stuff. You don’t wanna take it back to the store where you got them?”
“They were gifts. Stores won’t take ’em back without receipts.”
The man behind the counter lowered his eyes. His shoulders dropped and he let out a sigh. He laid his paperback down on the counter, scratched his chin, and looked up at the customer. Then he took off his glasses, folded them, and put them in his shirt pocket. He laced his fingers together and rested them on his bulging stomach.
“You know, my daughter just told us a few weeks back that she’s expecting. It’ll be our first grandbaby.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thank you kindly,” he said with a small kind of bow. “And, of course, she’ll need these eventually. You’d sure be saving me the trouble of driving out to Raleigh and going to some big, expensive, Babies-R-Us kind of place.” He spun one of the stroller wheels with a fat forefinger.
“So, you’re offering to buy them?”
“Yes, sir. It’d be doing us both a favor, wouldn’t it? Now, what’s your price? I can offer cash, or we can work out a trade if you’d like.”
The customer looked around the store. His eyes ran over the kitchen appliances, the children’s toys, the guns. Outside the thunder sounded further away, the rumble low and distant. He saw a television, big and flat, mounted on a wall. He craned his head in its direction. “How ‘bout that?”
“The T.V.?”
The customer nodded his head so slightly that the man behind the counter wasn’t sure the man had heard the question. He almost asked again but didn’t.
“I guess that’d be fine,” the shopkeeper said. He laid a hand on the stroller and held it there a moment. He smiled at his customer.
“I’ll go get the crib,” the other man said, his face unchanged.
“Need a hand?” the shopkeeper asked as he slid off of his stool and braced his big frame against the glass counter.
“I don’t reckon.” He put his hood back over his head and walked towards the door. He walked past a small bicycle with pink and white streamers hanging from the handlebars. He ran a hand through them and walked out the door. The rain had slowed some, but the sky was black. Thunder rolled over the plains in the distance and echoed. He couldn’t feel his toes. He walked to the bed of his truck, flipped back the tarp, and pulled out the foldable crib. It was long and heavy and awkward. He struggled to get the crib out without dropping it. Closing the tailgate with his knee, he balanced the crib against the truck, careful to set the frame on the toe of his boot to keep it off of the wet ground. He pulled the tarp back in place, lifted the crib with both hands, and headed back inside.
The owner held the door open as the man carried the crib into the pawn shop. He walked it towards the back of the store, passed the bike with the streamers, and rested the crib against the counter.
“Well, alright,” the shopkeeper said as he let the door swing closed.
Water dripped down from the crib onto the floor. A puddle sat on the glass counter under the stroller.
“You wanna take the T.V. with you now, or come back later and pick it up?”
“I’ll come back after the rain eases up. Not enough room in the cab to keep it up front and I don’t want it in the bed with all that water.”
“That’ll be fine. I certainly appreciate your business.”
The two men stood in the center of the small store. Thunder tumbled, louder now, like it had turned around and was moving back towards them. They shook hands. The store lights flickered.
“I don’t reckon it’ll ever stop raining,” the shopkeeper said as he looked out the front windows.
“No, I don’t reckon it will.”
They stared out the front windows and watched the dark clouds hang heavy and low as the store shelves shook and the floor rumbled underfoot.
