Sway

by Amber McRee Turner

  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.

  The Roast was so far away from us, it looked like a toy model of itself, and the walk from the flea market was twice as hot as the walk to it. Especially since Roy Biddum had left me feeling like someone took me by the shoulders and shook me real hard.

  Looking straight ahead toward the tiny RV, McClean said, “You know, I believe it was Abe Lincoln who once said, ‘It’s better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.’” Then he turned to me and smiled. “Good advice for our friend Roy, huh?”

  “Yeah, I guess the Abraham Lincoln soap really didn’t do anything for him,” I said.

  “You can say that again,” he said. “No one would accuse Mr. Biddum of being a statesman, that’s for sure.” He pinched a mosquito off my arm. “Forget all that back there, Cass. Abe Lincoln might not have been the right soap for Mr. Biddum anyway,” he said, flicking the bug to the ground.

  “Or maybe it was the right one and it’s going to kick in later,” he continued. “Like when he gets home tonight, he may very well stuff all the family’s important papers into his hat, like Lincoln liked to do.”

  “You mean the soap might work even if he’s not a believer?” I said.

  “You never know,” said McClean. “Maybe Sway is more powerful than we thought.”

  I held tight to the suitcase so the sun-warmed soaps wouldn’t jostle and stick together as we walked.

  McClean shed an unnecessary piece of his uniform every minute or so. Glasses, hat, jacket. By halfway across the field, he was looking Dadish again.

  “So isn’t it a major lie?” I asked. “Saying things are antique when they’re really not?”

  Dad coughed like he’d inhaled a dandelion fuzz.

  “What do you mean?” he said.

  “That junk Roy was selling in his booth. You could totally tell he just took some new things and tried to make them look old.”

  Dad looked at me like he was surprised I’d even noticed.

  “Yeah well, it’s no secret the guy’s a jerk,” he said. “But let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe his stuff is genuine. At least some of it.”

  “Probably not,” I said. “And I think it’s terrible what he does, tricking folks like that. People like him don’t even deserve Sway.”

  Dad’s arms suddenly went all loosey-goosey, and he started dropping one thing after another on the ground as we walked, letting go of one thing every time he bent to pick up another, like something had rattled him good.

  “You okay, Dad?”

  “Sure I am,” he said. “Um…just watch where you step.…I think I saw some fire ant hills on the ground.”

  I sure didn’t see any anthills, but I still stepped high to avoid them, making every lift of my legs thump the suitcase hard against my ribs. When we finally got back to The Roast, Dad helped me unstrap the suitcase from my shoulders, and we lifted the wagon in through the side door.

  “Cass, I’m afraid it’s too late in the day to find us another stop before dark,” he said. “How about we settle here tonight?”

  It was just as well. My legs, my back, and my thoughts were all equally achy.

  “Sorry about the disappointing day,” he added.

  “It’s all right.” I flopped myself onto the couch. “I’m just sad that we might have missed helping somebody who really needed Sway today.”

  “That’s always a possibility,” said Dad. “But look at this past week. You can’t let what Sway didn’t do take away the importance of what it did. Which reminds me.” Dad picked up the open suitcase and laid it on his lap. He reached his hand behind the lid’s silky lining and pulled a little something out. “I’m sorry I didn’t do this sooner,” he said. “Here you go.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Something I think you’ve been holding out for,” he said, opening his fist to reveal a pale pink soap with the letters T B N written across it.

  “Toodi Bleu Nordenhauer,” he said.

  Hearing him say her name was good and gross all swirled into one. Like sugar and sardines.

  “No thanks,” I said. “I don’t want it anymore.”

  I tossed the soap into the suitcase.

  “And that’s precisely why I’m sorry,” he said. “The thing is, Cass…just like us, your mom had limits too. Limits that made her doubt herself to the point of losing hold of everything.

  “The other day on the battlefield,” he said. “When you asked me if that T N soap was a Toodi one…Well, knowing what I knew at the time about your mom, I let myself get all in a knot just thinking about the way you idolized her. I guess what I’d never considered is that, despite her wrength, as you would call it, there is still a history of good, honest heroism that she has accomplished in her life.”

  Dad handed me the sliver once again.

  “And I figure that gives a daughter more than enough reasons to want to be like her,” he said.

  “Thanks, Dad.” I held the soap loose so it wouldn’t make accidental suds in my sweat.

  “But keep this in mind when you wash with it,” he said. “It’s okay if you don’t feel a…a…now, what did you call it?”

  “Zingle?” I said.

  “Yeah, a zingle,” he said. “Don’t worry if you don’t feel a zingle right away. I’ve heard that sometimes the zingle happens later too.”

  “Heard from who?” I said.

  Dad hesitated for a moment.

  “Don’t mind that,” he said. “Just trust me.”

  “Okay, Dad.”

  “That all being said, I anticipate us ha
ving a big Sway day tomorrow,” Dad said. “Don’t you fret. You and I will make a real difference somewhere.”

  “But we don’t have much soap left,” I reminded him. “What happens if we run out?”

  Dad looked like he’d been put on pause while he searched for an answer. I kind of hoped he’d know that one right off the top of his head.

  “Not a problem,” he said. “I told you before that our inheritance is limitless, and I meant it. You just let me worry about all that.”

  “Why? Do you have a secret stash of freshies with us?”

  Dad paused again and bit at his bottom lip. “You bet,” he said. “Now, you just hang tight. I spotted a Huddle House in the lot of that hotel across the way. I’m going to go fetch us some dinner. Remember, I may be a little while if they’re crowded.”

  I watched Dad wait patiently to cross the highway, his hair blowing from the blast of the passing cars. All the while, I played back the things he’d said about Mom, realizing it was the first time he’d talked sweet about her since before she left. As I felt the buttery smoothness of the pink T B N soap in my hand, Dad’s words played over and over in my head: Maybe Sway is more powerful than we thought.

  Without hesitation, I went to my room, stopping only to stash the Toodi soap in the backest back of the top pantry shelf, where I didn’t have to look at it. Then I pulled the rhubarb man postcard from under my bed cushion, pleased to find that the Mother Teresa soap was still intact and stuck tight to the card. I had a good feeling it would survive a trip to Florida.

  There was no sight of a supper-carrying dad out the side window of The Roast, so I took the opportunity to make my own dash across the road and drop that postcard into what may have been Patakatish, Tennessee’s only big blue mailbox. The card fell to the bottom with a hollow-sounding thunk.