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After some lively if not cryptic banter shot across the produce store through the fruit filled vapors and among those who collected there, I asked him for the price of carrots. The owner who assumed the guise of actor Harvey Keitel, turned to his clerk and said to her, "If I tell him he will ask me to change the posted signs." Because he had caught my looks and subtly made reactions as dialogue within that place had flown around before, because he knew what he did know, he paused and came around behind, pulled me close and whispered straight in my left ear, "Will you give me one hundred dollars for an apple?". Because he noted that I paused to study what he asked, because I knew I did not have such money on me, possibly could not get it soon, because he had surmised this as his measured words had weighed that room, because I knew that if I could I just might give it to him, because he knew that if I really did understand the question I would not respond too quickly, because I suspected this a clever dare, investment with its own rewards, because he believed that I was perhaps no fool, because I believed that he was likely no one's fool, because he refused to move or blink until I spoke, because I knew the question asked was not about fruit or cash, after an electric pause, I turned my head and in his eye, said, "Yes, I'll pay one hundred dollars for an apple." Because: Trust will never be on sale. 2008 Gary Brown |
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