The Year Money Grew on Trees - Aaron Hawkins [72]
"Should we make some special signs or something?" I asked Lisa.
"I think we should put some of us on the other side of the road. That way we can get them coming and going." Lisa spoke as if she had been doing this sort of thing for years. "We can take one of these banners over there too," she continued, pointing at the signs she had made.
***
By eight o'clock the next morning, Lisa and Jennifer were positioned at the station wagon with fifty full boxes stacked next to it. On the other side of the road were Amy and Michael. There were no old cars available for them to sit in, so we set up an old pup tent we used whenever we went camping. Another fifty boxes sat next to it.
Sam and I were going to work on bringing out the rest of the apples throughout the day and also help both sides of the road with selling. I could tell Lisa viewed the whole thing as a competition and wanted me to keep careful track of how many boxes went to each side. She had given Amy an empty peanut butter jar to put money in and had included a little change and carefully labeled the amount on the outside.
The morning started off slowly, and I decided to wander across the road to help Amy and Michael. The first customer I talked with pulled up in a beat-up Ford pickup.
"You got any of them white apples?" called the old Navajo woman in the passenger seat.
"No, but we have some really good red ones. You can try 'em," I said.
I ran and got a good-size apple and wiped it on my shirt until it was nice and shiny. The old woman took the apple and without trying it said, "We wanted the white ones," and they drove off.
It took me several attempts to sell my first box. Finally, a Navajo man gave me a $10 bill and then kicked his foot at one of the boxes. "This one," he said roughly.
"Okay, thanks," I replied, taking the money and handing him his change.
He kept looking at the box, then at me. I finally realized he wanted me to carry it to his truck. I was going to tell him to do it himself, but I looked across the road and saw Lisa and Jennifer carrying a box to a truck while a man looked on. They each were holding one side of the box and struggling to get it over the tailgate. I grudgingly grabbed the box and threw it in the man's truck.
We discovered after a few hours that Lisa's side of the road had a distinct advantage. There were many more cars heading to Farmington in the morning, and so she would often have five or six cars at a time pulled off beside her. She had unloaded her first fifty boxes by 11:00 a.m. and had a satisfied look on her face.
On the other side of the road, Michael was doing his best to keep Amy and me distracted. He started rolling apples onto the pavement as cars would drive by, trying to time his rolls so that the apples would be smashed underneath a tire.
"What are you doing?" I yelled.
"We do this all the time when I help Sam bring the apples up," he said coolly.
"I was wondering where all those stains on the road were coming from," said Amy. "I knew there couldn't be that much roadkill."
I restrained myself from telling Michael to stop since I wanted to keep everyone happy.
"So what else do you do to entertain yourself up here at the road?" I asked him.
"The best thing that ever happened was when the Hostess Bakery truck came along, and we traded him a box of apples for a whole tray of day-old pies. You know the kind that come by themselves wrapped up in a little package," Michael said, thinking about it happily.
"How come me and Jackson never got any pies?" asked Amy angrily.
"Well, we decided if we didn't tell you, you wouldn't miss them."
In the afternoon the traffic pattern began to switch, and there were more people headed back toward Shiprock. Long lines of cars pulled off both sides of the road, some of them trying each side to find the best deal. Sam and I stayed busy bringing more boxes up from the orchard, which I was much happier doing than trying to