The Crew We Paid at the Bin Trailer

The Last Apple

Lester did not leave with the others. He walked back to the last bin on the trailer, the fortieth, the one Jory had cheered. Mavis’s truck had not taken it yet.

He reached in and picked up the apple that sat on the very top. The first apple of the last bin.

He looked at it for a moment, turned it over in his rough, sunburned hand, and rubbed it on his shirt.

Then he walked over to my truck, opened the passenger door, and set it on the seat.

He did it carefully, the way you would set down an egg. He closed the door and turned around.

“That one’s yours, Callie,” he said. “Sixteen years. Nobody ever picked my fruit for me before.”

I could not answer him. I stood there with my hand over my mouth.

Abe put his arm around my shoulders, and Lester nodded at both of us and walked to his truck.

I still have that apple. It dried out years ago, but I wrapped it in tissue paper and put it in the cedar box with my mother’s Bible and Jory’s hospital bracelet. Some things you keep.

Spencer at the Fence

That was when I saw Spencer. He was standing at the fence line between his rows and ours, maybe 60 yards off, with his hands in his coat pockets.

I do not know how long he had been there. Long enough.

Long enough to see 11 men picking a crop that was not theirs for free. Long enough to see envelopes go into hands at the bin trailer.

His Fuji were behind him, hanging heavy and red in the low sun. Eighteen acres of them, the last block of his season, the block Abe’s crew was supposed to start Monday.

Abe saw him too. He stood up off the trailer, tucked the green book in his shirt pocket, and walked toward the fence.

I did not follow. Jory started to, and I caught his sleeve. They stood on two sides of the wire. I could not hear what they said.

I saw Spencer say something, and I saw Abe shake his head once, slowly. Then Abe said something short and turned and walked back.

When he got to the trailer, I asked him what he said. He sat down next to me.

“I told him the men are paid,” Abe said. “And I told him he still owes them $8,400.”