This is a story I first wrote sometime in the mid-90s, and which I revisit every few years to tweak, mostly because I seem to meet a dead end when I start a new one. I have the writing bug right now, so I am trying anything to jump start.
As I stood among the pallets of tobacco wrapped in burlap and baling wire, sweltering in the summer heat and enraptured by the singsong mumbling of the auctioneer, I had my epiphany. I looked heavenward—as though expecting a sign, but seeing only the movement of the large, steel ceiling fans in their futile struggle against the August air, their blades fused by motion as they spun at full tilt—teetering on the edge of awareness. On the periphery of perception, at the edges of my narrowing world, I heard the auctioneer rattling on and on, moving from pallet to pallet along the aisle, the rhythm of the words carrying the bidders to the climax of the game. And when the congregation reached the end of the second row, after a scant fifteen minutes of instruction, I understood.
When I first approached the building, really a large shed made of corrugated tin with a long-long faded and hard-weathered white paint job, I could not have told anyone what I was doing there. The morning air was still damp on the way to oppressive and dew glistened in the grass and in the trees. Passing through the farm town on the state highway, I had passed the warehouse and its sign bearing the name of the cooperative under whose auspices the sale was held. The sign, welcoming as at any church, read, “Sale Today, 9 A.M-?, Come on in!” I might have ignored the sudden curiosity the sign awakened had not my stomach grumbled, reminding me that it was time for breakfast.
* * *
The country diner was a country diner. There is really nothing to compare the species to except for other members of the species. A formica counter with spinning seats, topped in red vinyl; a handful of tables topped with red checked tablecloths, four chairs to a table; the smell of pork and eggs and hash browns in the air, so thick you feel your arteries clog when you open the door. I love a country diner. The place was crowded and as I sat down at the counter to order my own little portion of excess, I listened to the sound of the room.
Most of the conversation was about the upcoming auction, and how this could be the last. They talked about past sales as well. Some of them were, or at least looked like, ancient farmers, their faces permanently weathered by the sun and so on. I won’t bother you with details; the type has been described before and I have no special gift for faces. Their talk was the talk of old men, of better days when the auctions had real meaning, before the conglomerates began negotiating directly with the farmers, before the allotments had been bought up by the government. Soon the auctions, already a pale shadow of auctions past, would be extinct. They despaired that their way of life would endure.
* * 
*
Perhaps it was this despair that drove me to follow most of them back to the warehouse to watch the sale. The representatives of the tobacco companies had already arrived and were picking over the merchandise, rubbing it between their fingers and inhaling the scent. It struck me as futile, since the sweet smell of fresh tobacco was omnipresent, overpowering every olfactory nerve in the place. More than once a deep inhalation led to sneezing, the sound clearly marking me as an outsider.
Off to the side, serenely sitting in a lawn chair and stroking an old coon hound, taking everything in, was a man later revealed as the auctioneer. Occasionally someone would approach him and he would respond with a nod, looking at the supplicant and through him at the activity. They quickly realized that he was paying little attention to them, though his face never betrayed the slightest annoyance. With no apparent signal, he unfolded himself and walked over to the first pile. The auction had begun.
On to part two...
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