Fiction by Dwight Hinson

Dwight Hinson says, “My grandfather and my mother were both storytellers. When I was a kid, I used to soak up all that stuff like a sponge. I guess it marinated in me through adulthood. Finally, in retirement, I had the time to get it all out. I’d always wanted to be a writer, but making a living got in the way. Now I had the time. I’ve been at it for twenty years, and I love doing it even more than I would have ever dreamed.”

Safe and Secure in Any Weather 

Walker Bean Smith approached the Trafford house with a mask of great trepidation stamped on his face. He knew Tom Trafford and his wife, Jackie, had been bickering for a week now, and the reluctant husband had been practicing acting ugly in anticipation of this visit. 

The truth was Tom Trafford could see him coming and had been watching the dusty road rise and fall for some time through a puffy set of gingham curtains while Jackie tended her lipstick for the umpteenth time. The car gave the impression of speed as it passed the old abandoned well, but it was in the metal and not the practice. The shape had been designed to cut anything that wasn’t solid, and the sleek chrome trim to give that same impression when not in motion. 

“Here he comes!” Tom called. 

He heard a rustling behind him and knew Jackie had changed into a taffeta dress. He didn’t like that either. It made her look cheap. It was funny how taffeta weighed down her hair, her features, smeared her lipstick. Dressed in cotton there was no better wife anywhere. But let a traveling salesman come along, and it all went to hell. It all fit though. Jackie was made to lure strangers. That’s why there was an appointment with the siding man in the first place. If it had been Tom, he’d have sent him packing. 

Jackie stuck her head out the side of the doorframe. 

“I’ll be ready in a minute. Offer him some tea.” 

“I’ll offer him the toe of my boot.” 

“You ain’t goin to act like that. Your mama raised you better. Think I don’t know you?” she scolded. 

“His ass is grass,” Tom threatened. “You’re such a fool.” 

“If one of us is a fool, it’s the one don’t know we ain’t got no money for aluminum sidin,” he stated flatly. 

But she’d already gone back to her vanity. 

Tom turned back to the kitchen window. He couldn’t help but notice the curtains smelled like chlorine. 

She’d been at it again. The curtains were ironed and billowed out roundly. It gave him a sinking feeling. The car came to a rolling stop in a cloud of dust that seemed destined for some other car somewhere on up the road. The siding man was out all face forward. He wore a sky blue seersucker suit with a clean white unbuttoned collar, and Tom could tell there wasn’t a drop of sweat anywhere on his body. Not your typical Fuller Brush man, this one. The first thing most of them did was mop their brow with an oversized white handkerchief like a circuit preacher. But Tom couldn’t get over the way his face ran ahead of him. Permanently shocked, or grim, or whatever he was trying to say, he couldn’t tell. The siding man was looking away from him. Back at the old well. Tom wondered what it meant. They usually had big, wide, fake smiles you couldn’t scrape off with a wire brush. He left the window the same time the salesman left the driver’s door. He straightened his silver string tie. Then his normally soft features hardened. Everybody had to know his role in this. When he got to the door he could see the siding salesman hanging back, but his face was right in the opening. Tom opened the door. 

“I guess you just as well to come in, but don’t expect nothin but cordiality. That’s all we can afford around here.” 

The siding man didn’t say anything in response. He just stood there with a look of great disappointment on his face. 

“Name’s Walker Bean Smith. You Mr. Trafford?” 

“That’s right. I know you know that.” 

“Yeah. I didn’t have no doubts about it. I was hopin you might be busy though and couldn’t keep our appointment.” 

Tom grinned knowingly. 

“I bet you did.” 

The siding man fidgeted. 

“I’m sorry, Mr. Trafford. I can’t sell you no sidin. This county’s reached it’s quota, but here’s the twenty dollars I promised your wife for considering us.” 

Walker Bean Smith came toward him, and Tom felt his face march right past him into the living room. The siding man’s lean hand thrust out a crisp twenty. Tom didn’t know what to do. He took the bill like you do anything offered that appears harmless and you don’t know any different. 

“Well, I guess I’ll be goin.” 

“Wait a minute. Why? Why can’t you sell me no sidin?” 

Tom looked Walker Bean Smith in the eye, allowing for the first lie and maybe even looking down the throat of the second. 

“I done told you. We hit our quota of Repel Rebel 1 in this county.” 

“Is that right?” Tom inquired skeptically. 

“Your wife said you’d have to have a lifetime guarantee,” the siding man said by way of explanation. 

“Well, she knows me, and I guess I know her.”

“Seems so.”

Walker Bean Smith started back to the car.

“Wait a minute. If there’s a Repel Rebel 1, there must be a Repel Rebel 2.” “There is, but it don’t come with a lifetime guarantee.” 

“Why?” 

The siding man got suddenly animated, as if somebody goosed him with a hot wire. 

“Because the Repel Rebel 1 is too good, that’s why. They said we’re phasin it out because we can’t get no repeat business, but I happen to know the president of the company had his house done just ahead of the announcement. But you know what I think is really goin on? I think the govamint bought the contract. I think they’re goin to keep it in secret for the rocket people down in Huntsville.” 

Tom Trafford saw right through the first lie, and the second seemed to be two and three combined, but he didn’t much like the sound of government interference in free enterprise even if was make believe. 

“What about Repel Rebel 2?” he heard himself asking. 

“It’s all right,” Walker Bean Smith shrugged, “No lifetime guarantee. Fifteen years. That’s it. I can get it for you though, if you can stand second best.” 

He seemed disgusted and ready to go over to selling those purple vortex vacuum cleaners that also freshened the air. 

“There must be a way to get Repel Rebel 1 somehow,” Tom Trafford thought out loud. 

Walker Bean Smith closed the door and came around the car. 

“Andy sold the last batch. Same color as your house,” he said matter-of-factly, “I can get you Repel Rebel 2 that color though.” 

“Yeah, I’m partial to gray. So is my wife,” Tom confessed, turning to inspect the color of his house, “But I’m one for guarantees. Kind of like when you marry. You know, for better or worse?” 

“I heard of that one. Admirable. I heard of it, but I ain’t had the occasion.” 

“I see. You ain’t a married man?” 

“No. I been about to marry four times. Every time I get cold feet.” 

“Well, you’re on the road. A man on the road ain’t got no business married, I guess. Too much time in the company of strangers. I don’t reckon it’d be fair.” 

“Probably not.” 

About that time Jackie stuck her head out the door. 

“And what are the two of you doin still out here? I thought you would be inside by now, so I could make an entrance.” 

“She’s right,” Tom motioned the siding salesman inside, “There ain’t no sense in us standin out here in the heat. Come on in, and we can talk about it. I might be able to put you onto some friends that would be interested in that Repel Rebel 2.” 

“You do that, and twenty dollars is yours for every one of them,” Walker Bean Smith promised. 

Jackie had already gone back inside to reset herself. 

The siding salesman turned around to check and see had the car collected any unwanted dust. He glanced at the old well, or so Tom Trafford thought. Maybe it was just his imagination. 

“Well, if you don’t care?” Walker Bean Smith uttered politely. Tom Trafford held his arm like an open gate. 

The siding salesman’s legs and feet were too busy for the rest of his body. He was a blur. Walker Bean Smith came through the door ahead of the man of the house, removing the fedora all in one motion. 

Tom Trafford hadn’t even noticed the hat till this moment. 

“Have a seat, Mr. Smith. Iced tea?”

Tom suggested a general direction in which two chairs stood, one a flowered straight back arched at the crown and thought to be borderline antique and a plush wine colored easy chair spilling over at the armrests. Walker Bean Smith chose the latter. Tom Trafford judged him a man not just open to familiarity but also courting it. 

“Ta da,” Jackie paraded into the room. There was none of her that wasn’t lithe and silken and liquid under the stiff dress. The ruby lipstick seemed to be all over her face. 

“Get our company some tea, Tom,” she gushed. 

Walker Bean Smith sat down and wallowed in the plush chair. He then placed his hat over his knee and looked receptive to the idea of some refreshment. 

Jackie plopped down on the settee like something live and just packaged in plastic and still breathing before it dawned on them they didn’t have much air left. Tom Trafford went to the kitchen. The wall between the kitchen and living room was all door, so he got a good view of how the two regarded one another across the room. Jackie flirted openly. For his part Walker Bean Smith’s face was pulled out like a magnet as before, but his eyes looked like they resided all the way in Jackie’s lap. It was then Tom Trafford knew that which he feared had already happened. He broke a tray of ice cubes and stuffed them in plastic glasses. Then he opened the Fridgedaire and extracted a glass tea pitcher about the same shade as it’s contents. He poured the tea three quarters of the way to the top. He carried the glasses married together back to the living room, peering over the top. Jackie still flirted, but the siding man was past any interest. He was already down the road to the next woman. 

“Now, about that Repel Rebel 1 sidin?” Tom passed out the glasses. 

“It’d have to be Repel Rebel 2,” Walker Bean Smith corrected. 

“What would it take to get Repel Rebel 1?” Tom wanted to know. 

“I ain’t got none. I can’t sell it to you,” the siding man said, “Now I can get you all the Repel Rebel 2 you want.” 

Tom seated himself next to his wife. 

“I don’t want your cheaper model. I want Repel Rebel 1, and I bet you can get it for me,” Tom said calmly. 

“It ain’t so. Andy sold the last,” Walker Bean Smith shook his head. “Has it been installed?”

The siding man’s eyes shifted around the room. “Not yet.” 

“Then you can get it.” 

Walker Bean Smith sat up in his chair. He sniffed the air like a dog that hasn’t quite decided what he’s tracking but knowing he’ll track it. 

Jackie gave her husband a dirty look. 

“I’ll pay Andy’s commission and a little boot. You get me that Repel Rebel 1 like I told you,” Tom told the siding man. 

“There ain’t no need to get ugly, Tom. Mr. Smith is a guest in our house,” Jackie interjected. 

Tom ignored her. 

“I want that lifetime guarantee. I want a guarantee I won’t ever lay eyes on you again,” Tom said in an even voice. 

Walker Bean Smith took him in and presently began to calculate in his head. 

“It’ll cost a pretty penny,” he finally said in a little more brazen tone than Tom would have expected after he’d laid down the law. 

“Tom, I’m surprised at you!” 

“I was just tellin the man. It’s just business, honey,” Tom turned to his wife and smiled artificially, “Mr. Smith understands business. Don't you, Mr. Smith?” 

The siding man nodded.

“Just you be sweet,” she admonished him. 

“I’m bein as sweet as I know how,” he gritted his teeth and bit down on a less forced smile. 

Walker Bean Smith took a scrap of paper from somewhere in his hat and scrawled something on it that took a long time to write with a stub of pencil from behind his ear. 

“It’s all right. I’m used to people flying off the handle,” the siding man shushed the outraged Jackie, “It’s just business as your husband says. Here’s my figure, Mr. Trafford.” 

He got up and advanced on the other man. 

Tom Trafford leaned forward to accept the paper into his hand. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of Jackie desperately trying to communicate something urgent to the siding man who ignored her as if she were a discarded cigarette. Tom looked at the paper while Walker Bean Smith stood not far off with his arms folded in front of him. 

“Done. When do I get my sidin?” 

The siding man’s hat was back on his head. 

“Now that was sweet. Wasn't it sweet, Mr. Smith?” 

“Mighty sweet, Mrs. Trafford. Mighty sweet.” 

“You know what happens when you’re sweet, Tom?” Jackie addressed her husband. 

“Yes, I know,” Tom Trafford answered grudgingly. 

“I’ve got to go out to the car and get your contract,” Walker Bean Smith told his new client, “I’ll be right back.” 

“Go ahead. We ain’t goin nowhere.” 

Tom leaned back in the settee and sat there stiffly while his wife cozied up to him, the taffeta scratching his arm. No words passed between them. They appeared to have a mutual understanding of what was expected of each going forward. 

The siding man didn't even get in the car. They could see him through the window. Instead he opened the door, stood in the fold and gazed off in the direction of the old well. He knows somethin, Tom thought. He thought maybe Jackie thought the same thing, but she didn’t bat an eyelash. 

Walker Bean Smith danced back inside in that curious way of his of having no control over his legs. He went straight to the kitchen table and smoothed out the contract on the formica. He beckoned Tom over. 

Tom patted Jackie’s hand. Then he got up and joined the siding man poring over the contract. The contract was headed up in block letters with the slogan “SAFE AND SECURE IN ANY WEATHER”. 

“Sign here,” Walker Bean Smith produced a fountain pen with the same words etched in the barrel. 

Without a word Tom Trafford took up the pen. He scratched his signature on the line marked BUYER. 

“I’ll be goin then. Keep the pen. I’ll have a crew here in two days.” 

“Two days,” Tom Trafford rose and shook Walker Beans Smith’s hand. 

That night Jackie was affectionate, and when he woke he found another set of curtains, the ones from the spare bedroom, in the sink to soak. Jackie had his favorite breakfast cooked, and undoubtedly would have served it in bed had she known he was awake. She had a pair of gigantic curlers attached to her temples. 

“Mornin, sweetheart.”

Tom grunted in her general direction.

“Are you up for good, honey? You was a hard worker last night.”

Tom ignored her comment.

“I got to go to the big bank over in McNeil for the money.”

“Why don’t you just write him a check? You never seem to write them a check.” 

“The same reason I don’t take a check for the crops. There’s a three day hold, and I don’t want anybody thinkin it over,” he snapped, “A deal is a deal, and I don’t want some jack leg changin his mind.” 

“Ain’t you in a mood?” she whined. He poured himself a cup of coffee. 

“I won’t be back till late, so don’t wait up for me, and I don’t want to see no curtains in to soak when I do!” 

She began to cry softly. 

He gave her a wide berth going out the door. She reached out for him half heartedly. 

He climbed in the two-and-a-half-year-old Crown Victoria under the carport and lit off the motor. He looked for her in the window, but he only saw his own reflection in the car’s glass. He was quite a sight, he thought, a man runnin over a woman. 

But Tom Trafford didn’t go to McNeil. He drove to Breece City and sat around the cafeteria all day drinking coffee. Toward evening he located the siding company headquarters and stopped in about closing time. He paid the bill with a check from the bank in McNeil. In passing he inquired about Walker Bean Smith. 

“Fine fella,” he told the clerk. 

“He’s gone for the day. Probably down at the Wagon Wheel drinking.” 

Tom stopped a second time at a phone booth on the main drag and looked up the address. Then, about dark, he settled in at the perimeter of a giant cone of dirty light hovering over the Wagon Wheel lot after scouting the siding salesman’s sleek automobile parked near the door. He would have dozed, but the coffee kept him awake. 

In two days the siding crew showed up. 

“Repel Rebel 1, you can’t beat it!” the foreman said, “Can’t get it anymore! Walker tell you? Lifetime guarantee!” 

“Yeah, I heard,” Tom humored him. 

“But you know it’s funny,” the foreman mused, “Walker didn’t come in to work yesterday, or today. It’s not like him. I guess he’s off spendin that big commission. It ain’t no business of mine, if the boys wants to blow off a little steam now and then.” 

“I reckon not,” Tom readily agreed, “I hear sales is high stress work. One week it’s steak, the next it’s beans.” 

The third day into the installation Tom Trafford seemed to suddenly notice the pile of scrap building up in the bed of the siding crew’s big hauler. 

“Ain’t that mine too?” he pointed. 

“Sure, but we normally haul it off for you,” the foreman said. 

“Don’t do that,” Tom Trafford said, “Drop it down that old abandoned well over yonder. It needs a bottom. No telling but some kid might fall in.”